U. Vimal Kumar (born 19 November 1962) is an Indian former

badminton Badminton is a racquet sport played using racket (sports equipment), racquets to hit a shuttlecock across a net (device), net. Although it may be played with larger teams, the most common forms of the game are "singles" (with one player per s ...

player. He won the Indian National title consecutively for two years, 1988 and 1989. He also served as Chief National Coach of India. He is the Co Founder, Director and Chief Coach in Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy. He was awarded the

Dronacharya Award The Dronacharya Award, officially known as Dronacharya Award for Outstanding Coaches in Sports and Games, is sports coaching honour of the Republic of India. The award is named after Drona, often referred as "Dronacharya" or "Guru Drona", a cha ...

in 2019. He was the bronze medalist in badminton at the 1986 Asian Games in the Men's team event.

Career

During his career he won

French Open The French Open (), also known as Roland-Garros (), is a tennis tournament organized by the French Tennis Federation annually at Stade Roland Garros in Paris, France. It is chronologically the second of the four Grand Slam (tennis), Grand Slam ...

in 1983 & 1984 and

Welsh International Open The Welsh International Open is a defunct WTA Tour affiliated tennis tournament played in 1997, 12–18 May. It was held in Cardiff in Wales Wales ( ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It ...

in 1988 & 1991. Vimal also represented India at the

Barcelona Olympics The 1992 Summer Olympics (, ), officially the Games of the XXV Olympiad (, ) and officially branded as Barcelona '92, were an international multi-sport event held from 25 July to 9 August 1992 in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. Beginning in 1994 ...

in 1992, and was ranked within the top 20 in the world. He was the National chief coach of the Indian badminton squad for several years. He quit the post in 2006 to concentrate on coaching youngsters at the

Prakash Padukone Prakash Padukone (born 10 June 1955) is an Indian former badminton player. He was ranked World No. 1 in 1980; the same year he became the first Indian to win the All England Open Badminton Championships. He was awarded the Arjuna award in 1972 ...

Badminton Academy. Now, he is currently coaching star player

Saina Nehwal Saina Nehwal (; born 17 March 1990) is an Indian badminton player. A former world no. 1, she has won 24 international titles, which includes ten Superseries titles. Although she reached the world's 2nd in 2009, it was only in 2015 that she was ...

in Bangalore.He also coaches

Parupalli Kashyap Parupalli Kashyap (born 8 September 1986) is an Indian former badminton player. A former World No. 6, he is a coach at Gopichand Badminton Academy. He was awarded the Arjuna Award in 2012. He became the first male player from India to reac ...

. Malayalam film actor

Kalidas Jayaram Kalidas Jayaram (born 16 December 1993) is an Indian actor who appears predominantly in Tamil and Malayalam films. The son of film actors Jayaram and Parvathy, Kalidas made his debut in the Malayalam film '' Kochu Kochu Santhoshangal'' (2000) ...

is his nephew.

Achievements

IBF International

References

External links

* * * * * 1962 births Living people Indian male badminton players Indian national badminton champions Olympic badminton players for India Badminton players at the 1992 Summer Olympics Asian Games bronze medalists for India Asian Games medalists in badminton Badminton players at the 1986 Asian Games Medalists at the 1986 Asian Games Commonwealth Games competitors for India Badminton players at the 1990 Commonwealth Games Malayali people Racket sportspeople from Kerala Recipients of the Dronacharya Award {{India-badminton-bio-stub