Naishaa Kaur Bhatoye, who featured as young shuttler Saina in the Saina Nehwal’s biopic has added a new feather in her cap. Naishaa Kaur Bhatoye has has bagged the U-15 girls singles title at the Ashwani Gupta Memorial All India Sub Junior Ranking Badminton Tournament.
As per Mid-Day, the 13-year-old Chembur based badminton player trains at the Jitesh Padukone Shuttlers’ Academy as well as the Pullela Gopichand Badminton Academy. To achieve her dream of becoming an ace badminton player, she continuously travels back and forth between Mumbai and Hyderabad.
India’s chief national coach Gopichand is full of praise for Naishaa. “She is a good talent and a very gritty athlete, a lot like Saina [Nehwal],” Gopichand told mid-day.
While recalling how she landed the role of kid Saina in the film, Naishaa mentioned:
“Initially, when actor Shraddha Kapoor [Parineeti Chopra eventually played the lead role after Kapoor opted out of the film] was doing the film, she saw me at the North Indian Association and recommended my name to the director. I was just nine when I shot for the movie. I shot for around one-and-a-half month for the 20-30 minute role. It was a dream come true to play the role of my idol. I took up badminton because of her,”
When this news surfaced on the social media, many came forward to congratulate the champ!
View this post on Instagram
At IFORHER, we salute this champion, who is a hero not only on screen, but in real life too! We wish Naishaa all the luck in her future endeavors. May she bring more laurels to our country!
In case you haven’t watched Naishaa onscreen, then don’t miss streaming Saina on Amazon Prime Video. We bet Naishaa won’t disappoint you on screen too!
