Does Parineeti Chopra's 'Saina' Poster Show a Tennis Serve? Badminton Fans Want to Know

The first poster of the much-awaited biopic based on celebrated badminton star Saina Nehwal was dropped on social media on Tuesday. Titled Saina, actress Parineeti Chopra will be portraying the journey of Nehwal in the upcoming movie slated to hit the theatres on 26 March. Directed by Amole Gupte, the film also stars Paresh Rawal and Manav Kaul alongside Chopra.

The poster was shared by film critic Taran Adarsh on the microblogging site Twitter and has already started doing the rounds on the website.

In the poster, one can see a hand reaching out for the birdie or the shuttlecock which uses the word “Saina” instead of the conventional feathers– a detail that was hailed by fans on social media.

Creative, right?

Not according to many Twitter users who thought that the makers may have confused the sport with tennis.

Assuming that the person (assumedly Parineeti Chopra) is indeed serving the shuttlecock, the poster goes against the basic rules of badminton. In fact, it’s a tennis serve as many on Twitter pointed out.

“In badminton, the serve must be hit in an upwards direction, with an underarm hitting action. You are not allowed to play a ‘tennis style’ serve,” Badminton Bible notes.

In another blog post laying down the basic rules and regulations of badminton, Decathalon notes that if a person were to serve overarm, the serve would be considered a “fault”.

“The serve should always be done underarm and below the server’s waist. An overarm serve is against the basic rules of badminton, and would be considered a fault.”

Badminton rules and the apparent gaffe in the Saina poster were pointed out by Twitterati.

Meanwhile, with this biopic, Saina joins the likes of boxer Mary Kom, cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni and sprinter Milkha Singh who have their biopics. Leading actors like Priyanka Chopra, Farhan Akhtar and late actor Sushant Singh Rajput have worked on biopics and Parineeti will be joining this list.