Saina teaser: Parineeti Chopra takes us inside Saina Nehwal’s life

Parineeti Chopra’s upcoming sports biopic Saina, based on former world number 1 badminton player and Olympics bronze medallist Saina Nehwal’s life has got a release date. T-Series on Tuesday morning took to Twitter to announce that the film will release just under a month’s time. The production house wrote, “Presenting the inspiring story of one of India’s greatest athletes, #Saina. In cinemas on 26th March.”

The makers of the film also launched the film’s video teaser, which Parineeti shared on her social media platforms. The teaser gives us glimpses into the badminton champ’s life and how she took up the sport early on in her life, when she was a small girl, and how India cheered for her as she participated in international tournaments.

The long-in-the-making biopic on ace shuttler Saina Nehwal is directed by Amole Gupte. The filmmaker has helmed movies such as Stanley Ka Dabba and Hawa Hawaai in the past.

Presenting the inspiring story of one of India’s greatest athletes, #Saina. In cinemas on 26th March.@ParineetiChopra @NSaina #AmoleGupte @Manavkaul19 @eshannaqvi #BhushanKumar @deepabhatia11 @sujay_jairaj @raseshtweets #KrishanKumar @AmaalMallik @manojmuntashir @kunaalvermaa77 pic.twitter.com/hy4de3MWQS

— T-Series (@TSeries) March 2, 2021

 

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A post shared by Parineeti Chopra (@parineetichopra)

The film was initially supposed to feature Shraddha Kapoor as Saina. The actor had aced the look test and had reportedly started training under Indian team head coach Pullela Gopichand for over a month-and-a-half to get into the role of the badminton player. After extensive training, Shraddha had started filming the movie too in September 2018, but it was stalled as she was diagnosed with dengue. Then, in early 2019, T-Series had announced that Parineeti Chopra had replaced Shraddha in the biopic.

The film’s 2020 release had to be pushed because of the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, because of which all cinema-halls had to be closed down as India went into a lockdown.

Talking about how she was preparing for the film, Parineeti had earlier said in a statement, “I was dying to do a sports-based film. It is a part of my personality as an actor that I have never explored, and I am so happy that I get to portray a strong and powerful girl like Saina. She has put our country on the world map, and I excited to put in all the training and hard work that comes with learning the game of Badminton and portraying Saina on screen.”

For the biopic, Parineeti has been religiously learning the game. She had shared that she was playing badminton for two hours every day to and training for an hour at least to sport an athlete physique and attitude.