Saina Nehwal Biography: From Small Town Girl to Badminton Champion

Saina Nehwal is a female badminton player from India. She has been the world’s number 1 player for a long time, she has gained fame all over the world due to her talent. Saina has been playing badminton since 2004. She is active in badminton and during this time she has won many medals, awards and achievements. Till 2009, Saina has been in the list of top 10 badminton players.

In 2015, Saina was ranked first in the world rankings, she was the first Indian woman to reach this position and the second Indian after Prakash Padukone. Saina has played in the Olympics for India three times. Saina has achieved many milestones in badminton, in which she has made her family as well as India proud. Saina is known as the most successful Indian female player. Saina is credited with increasing the popularity of badminton in India.

Saina Nehwal Biography

Saina was born in a Jat family in Hisar, Haryana. Her father Harvir Singh worked in an agricultural university in Haryana. Her mother Usha Rani was a state star badminton player. After some time, her father shifted from Haryana to Hyderabad. Saina started her schooling from Hisar in Haryana, but due to her father’s transfer, she had to change schools many times. Saina did her 12th from Saint Ann’s College Mehdipatnam in Hyderabad. Saina was a quiet, shy and studious student in school. Along with studies, Nehwal also learned Karate, she has got a brown belt in it.

Saina’s parents used to play badminton at the state level, Saina inherited the talent of badminton from her parents. Saina was fond of badminton from an early age. At the young age of eight, Saina’s father decided to teach her badminton, he took her to Lal Bahadur Stadium in Hyderabad, where Saina started learning badminton under coach “Nani Prasad”. Here her coach gave her strict training, and taught her the tricks of staying fit.

Saina’s father wanted to make his daughter a good badminton player, he did not even care about spending his savings to ensure that she gets good training. The stadium where Saina practiced badminton was 25 kms away from her house, her father used to take her there every day at 4 am on his scooter.

Many times Saina would fall asleep while sitting behind her father on the scooter, to avoid any kind of accident, her mother also started going to the stadium with Saina. After 2 hours of practice there, Saina used to go to school. After some time, Saina  took training from ‘ S M Arif ‘  , who is a well-known player of the country, who has been honored with the Dronacharya Award. After this, Saina joined Hyderabad’s ‘Pullela Gopichand Academy’, where she  started getting training from Gopichand ji  . Saina considers Gopichand ji as her mentor.

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Saina Nehwal Husband

Saina married Parupalli Kashyap on 14 December 2018. Parupalli Kashyap is also an experienced badminton player and belongs to Pullela Badminton Academy. Both of them were friends for a long time and liked each other. Due to this, they decided to get married.

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Saina Nehwal Height

Saina Nehwal Career 

In her formative years as a badminton player, Saina has always shown a sudden potential in herself. Saina played her first tournament in the Junior CJC Open in 2003  and won it  . In the Commonwealth Youth Games in 2004,  Saina came second  . After this, Saina again won the Asian Satellite Badminton Tournament in 2005  , which she  also retained in 2006. By winning this, Saina became the first under-19 player to win such a big title twice in a row.

2006 –  In May 2006, Saina participated in the 4 star tournament – ​​Philippines Opens. At the young age of 16, Saina won this title, and became the first female player from India and Asia to win this title. In the same year, she once again won the satellite tournament.

2008 –  In 2008, Saina became the first Indian to win the title of ‘World Junior Badminton Championship’. In the same year, Saina also won the ‘Chinese Taipei Open Grand Prix Gold’, ‘Indian National Badminton Championship’ and ‘Commonwealth Youth Games’. In 2008, Saina was declared as the most promising player.

2009 –  In 2009, Saina became the first Indian player to win the world’s most prominent badminton series  ‘ Indonesia Open ‘   . Saina also reached the quarterfinals of the ‘World Championship’ this year. This year Saina was given the Arjuna Award, and her coach ‘Gopichand’ was honored with the Arjuna Award.

2010 –  In 2010, Saina registered her victory in ‘India Open Grand Prix Gold’, ‘Singapore Open Super Series’, ‘Indonesia Open Super Series’ and ‘Hong Kong Super Series’. Saina achieved her biggest victory in the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games, she won the gold medal by defeating the Malaysian player in badminton singles.

2011 –  In 2011, Saina won the ‘Swiss Open Grand Prix Gold’. Apart from this, she secured second place in ‘Malaysia Open Grand Prix Gold’, ‘Indonesia Open Super Series Premier’ and ‘BWF Super Series Master Finals’.

2012 –  In 2012, Saina won the ‘Swiss Open Grand Prix Gold’, ‘Thailand Open Grand Prix Gold’ and ‘Indonesia Open Super Series Premier’, and won the Indonesian Open title for the third time. In the 2012 London Olympics, Saina won the bronze medal for the first time, and she became the first Indian to win a medal in badminton at the Olympics. After this victory, Saina was showered with awards, the governments of Haryana, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh announced cash prizes. Along with this, the Sports Minister offered Saina a job equivalent to that of an IAS officer.

Awards received after winning the bronze medal –

• Cash amount of Rs 1 crore from Haryana Government.
• Cash prize of Rs 50 lakh from Rajasthan Government.
• 50 lakh cash prize from Andhra Pradesh Government.
• Cash prize of Rs 10 lakh by Badminton Association of India.
• Awarded Doctorate Degree by Mangalayatan University.

2014 –  On 26 January 2014, Saina India’s own world champion PV Sindhu, who had won the bronze medal, and won the ‘India Open Grand Prix Gold Tournament’ women’s singles. This year her ranking was number 7. In the same year, Saina became the first Indian woman to win the ‘China Open Super Series Premier’. 

2015 –  In 2015, Saina once again won the ‘India Open Grand Prix Gold’. After this, Saina reached the final of the ‘All England Open Badminton Championship’, this was the first time that an Indian woman reached this far in this tournament. But Saina could not win this game.

On 29 March 2015, Saina was given the title of ‘Women’s Singles’ by ‘India Open BWF Super Series’. After this, on 2 April, according to the BWF ranking, Saina received the honor of World No. 1 badminton player. In August this year, in the World Badminton Championship, Saina was defeated by Carolina in the final, after which she got the silver medal.

2016 –  In the beginning of this year, Saina was troubled by many injuries, but soon she regained her health. This year she won the bronze medal in the Asian Championship. This was the second such occasion after 2010. Saina reached the quarterfinals of the ‘Indonesia Open Super Series Premier’ in June 2016, after which she once again had to face defeat from Carolina.

Carolina is a Spanish player, who won the gold medal by defeating PV Sindhu in the Rio Olympics. This year in Rio Olympics 2016, Saina participated in the Olympic Games for the third time in her career, here she was victorious in the first match, but lost the second match. 

2017 –

• During 2016-17, Saina could not participate in many tournaments due to injury. After some time, she recovered completely and returned to the game. After this, Saina participated in the first Malaysia Open Grand Prix and won this tournament.
• In August this year, Saina got a chance to participate in the World Badminton Championship in Glasgow. Nehwal reached the semi-finals by defeating Scotland’s Christie Gilmour in the quarter-finals. But she lost to Japan’s Nozomi Okuhara in the semi-finals, thus she got the bronze medal. This was Nehwal’s second consecutive bronze medal in the World Badminton Championship and she had won the quarter-finals 7 times in a row.
• After this, Saina won the 82nd National Badminton Championship by defeating PV Sindhu.

2018 –

• Saina had a good start in the year 2018, this year Saina reached the final of Indonesia Masters. To reach here, she defeated China’s Chen Yufei and Xoxin and India’s PV Sindhu in the quarterfinals. Along with this, she defeated Ratchanok Intanon in the semifinals.
• In the same year 2018, Saina won her second gold medal by defeating PV Sindhu in the final of the women’s singles game of the Commonwealth Games and with this she gave another gold medal to the Indian team in the mixed team competition.
• Then in the same year, Asian Badminton Championship was also organized, in which she lost to Tai Tzu-Ying, due to which she got the bronze medal.
• Saina had an excellent performance in the Asian Games in 2018. In these games, Saina won the Asian Badminton medal for India and with this medal, Saina became the first Indian female badminton player. She has achieved a rare feat by winning medals in the prestigious 5 games of badminton tournament, Olympics, World Championship, Commonwealth Games, Asian Championship and Asian Games.
• In 2018, Saina reached the final of Denmark Open by defeating Cheung Ngan Yi in the first round and Akane Yamaguchi in the second round. But in the final, she lost again to her arch rival Tai Tzu-Ying, in fact, she had lost to her earlier in the Asian Badminton Championship as well.
• Then this year Saina participated in the French Open, in which she made a good start by defeating Saina Kawakami of Japan. This year also she once again faced Tai Tzu-Ying and this time also she lost to her.
• After this, Saina also reached the final of Syed Modi International 300 tournament, but she lost there to China’s Han Yue. In this way, Saina reached the final four times in the year 2018, which includes French Open as well as Commonwealth, Denmark Open and Indonesia Open.

2019 –

• Saina has had a good start in the year 2019 as well. Her first tournament this year was the Malaysia Masters, where she defeated Japan’s Nozomi Okuhara and reached the quarter-finals. But she lost to world-famous Carolina Marin in the semi-finals.

In this way, along with failing in her career, she has also been seen climbing the ladder of success. It is hoped that she will perform well in her career and achieve success in the future too.        

Saina Nehwal Awards 

• In 2008, she was awarded the most promising player of the year award by the Badminton World Federation.
• She was awarded the Arjuna Award in 2009.
• In 2010, he was awarded India’s fourth highest civilian award, Padma Shri.
• Saina was awarded the biggest sports award ‘Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna’ in 2009-10.
• In 2016, Saina was awarded India’s third highest honour, Padma Bhushan.

Saina Nehwal is a well-known name in the country and the world today. Because of Saina, badminton has become so popular in India that badminton leagues have also started being organized in India. Along with girls, boys also get inspiration from Saina. Saina has given a new height to badminton, she is seen as Sachin of badminton. She is one of the athletes supported by ‘Olympic Gold Quest’.

Saina is also a very beautiful girl, apart from sports she has many modelling offers too. She is the brand ambassador of many companies. Saina is the brand ambassador of Yonex, Sahara India Pariwar. Apart from this, Saina is seen in the advertisements of Top Ramen Noodles, Fortune Cooking Oil, Indian Overseas Bank, Vaseline, Sahara and Yonex. Saina has also appeared in Satyamev Jayate, Comedy Nights with Kapil and The Kapil Sharma Show.

Saina Nehwal Net Worth

Saina Nehwal’s net worth is Rs 38 crores, which is more than $4 million.

Many of you might think that Saina Nehwal’s earnings come solely from her sports career, but that’s not the case. As a talented and popular sports personality, she has multiple income streams.

Income Sources of Saina Nehwal

Below are the details of the different channels through which Saina Nehwal’s bank account figures keep soaring and her wealth continues to grow.

• Tournament Winnings
• Endorsements
• Government Awards
• Public Appearances
• Books and Biographies
• Real Estate Investments

Saina Nehwal Biopic

Saina is a 2021 Indian Hindi-language biographical sports film directed by Amole Gupte and produced by Bhushan Kumar, Krishan Kumar, Sujay Jairaj and Rashesh Shah under the banner of T-Series and Front Foot Pictures. Based on the life of badminton player Saina Nehwal, the film stars Parineeti Chopra as Nehwal.

Saina Nehwal Interesting Facts  

• Saina’s grandmother was not happy with Saina’s birth because she wanted a boy and not a girl.
• Saina was selected in the Under-19 national team in 2005. And after winning the Asian Satellite Badminton Tournament twice, Saina became the Under-19 national champion in 2006.
• Saina’s mother calls her ‘Steffi Saina’ because Saina is a big fan of tennis star ‘Steffi Graf’.
• Saina also has a good command over Karate and she has also achieved brown belt in Karate.
• In 2012, Sachin Tendulkar gifted a BMW car to Saina when she won the gold medal in the Olympic Games.
• In the year 2018, Saina Nehwal released her autobiography ‘Playing to Win: My Life On and Off Court’.
• In October 2016, Saina was appointed as a member of the Athletes’ Commission of the International Olympic Committee.
• Saina has also appeared in the cover photos of various magazines like ‘Women’s Health’ and ‘Femina’ etc.

Saina Nehwal Social Media Profile

The former world No.1 badminton champion’s social media accounts are here: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter.

Frequently Asked Questions

Reference

• Wikipedia.
• Other article

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