At the 2019 World Championships, Khairul reached the final, where he lost to World number one Brady Ellison. The final required a tie-break after the fifth set for the winner to be decided, with the first three sets having been tied, and then the archers winning one set each. It was the first archery World Championship medal won by a Malaysian archer. This silver medal also secured a place for a Malaysian archer at the 2020 Summer Olympics. Following his performance at the World Championships, Khairul was shortlisted for World Archery's Male Athlete of the year for recurve archers.
