Nurul Suhaila Saiful

Nurul Suhaila Binte Mohamed Saiful (born 25 February 1995) is a Singaporean pencak silat practitioner. She represented Singapore at the Southeast Asian Games, the Asian Games and the Pencak World Championships. Nurul won her first world championship in 2018, at the 15th World Pencak Silat Championship.

Career

Nurul Suhaila started getting interested in Silat when she watched her brother fight. She then decided to compete and prove that girls can fight just as well as the boys can.

An accomplished silat exponent, Nurul Suhaila clinched a bronze medal for her category (Class D, 60 to 65kg) at the 2015 Southeast Asian Games and also a gold medal at the Sijori Pencak Silat Championships in 2014.

Selly Andriani had denied Suhaila gold in the final of the 15th World Pencak Silat Championship, and defeated the Singaporean again in the semi-final of the same tournament the following year, which resulted in Suhaila getting a silver and bronze respectively. However, at the 18th World Pencak Silat Championship, Suhaila defeated two-time world champion, Selly Andriani 4-1 at the OCBC Arena to enter Class D (60-65kg) final. She faced Thailand's Janejira Wankrue and defeated the latter, and got her first world title.

In 2019, at the first United States Open Pencak Silat Championships in Sterling, Virginia, Singapore won 16 gold medals out of a possible 27. Suhaila, together with Sheik Ferdous and Iqbal Abdul Rahman, won gold in the tournament.

Personal life

Nurul Suhaila has an older sister, Nurul Shafiqah Saiful, who is also a national pencak silat athlete.

Suhaila graduated from Ngee Ann Polytechnic with a diploma in mass communications.