What Makes Saina Nehwal The Badminton Icon For An Entire Nation

Parineeti Saina Biopic: Displaying the life of one of the best Badminton players of India the movie Saina is all set to release in theatres on 26 March 2021.

A little girl from a small village in Haryana to Nation’s biggest badminton sensation. From the trailer, it looks like the film will celebrate Saina Nehwal's achievements, failures and hardship as a sportsperson. On-screen Parineeti Chopra will be seen as Saina. 

In an interview, Chopra revealed that it was not easy for her to learn badminton. "It is a tough game and it needs to be respected." Talking about why she agreed to do Saina the film she said, "I wanted to do something different, I am known for being a happy girl around and the movie based on the sports star who is still playing is something I was looking for." The movie is directed by Amole Gupte. 

Here we have listed some of the major milestones of Saina Nehwal's badminton career:

World Junior Badminton Championship 

 After becoming the first player to win the Asian Satellite Badminton tournament ( Indian Chapter), in 2006, Nehwal in the same year reached the World Junior Badminton Championship, but she lost against the Chinese player Wang Hang.  Again in 2007, she participated and was among the finalists. After two years of losing to Wang Hang, In 2008, Sania became the first Indian to win the world junior badminton championship by defeating Sayaka Sato.

 London Olympics 2012 

After winning the Arjuna Award and Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award in 2009. The main focus was the London Olympics as that day history was waiting to get created. The London Olympics 2012 was very important for India and Saina. She bagged Bronze for the country that year. It made her the first Indian woman to win an Olympics in badminton. 

World Championships

In 2015, the BWF World Championship was held in Jakarta, Indonesia. Nehwal was seeded second. After defeating Cheung Ngan and Sayala Takahashi, she reached the quarterfinals. After beating Lindaweni Fantri in the semi-finals, Saina created history  by becoming the first-ever player from India to contest the World badminton championship finals. In the BWF World Championship 2017, at Glasgow Saina managed to get Bronze.

Commonwealth Games

 In 2010, Saina became the first woman to win gold in the badminton single event. Before this gold she had won bronze in 2006, Melbourne in the category of a mixed team. Then the journey of bagging the medals in the commonwealth games began. In 2018, she won gold twice.

China Open 2014

In 2014, the tigress became the first Indian player to win China open by beating Akane Yamaguchi in the finals. In the same year, she won the Australian Superseries. The event was also very special for her as it was Saina’s sixth appearance in the prestigious tournament.

Kajal Tharwani is an intern with SheThePeople