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Hindustan Times
6 days ago
- Sport
- Hindustan Times
Anahat enters her first world juniors semis, guarantees medal
Mumbai: India's rising squash talent Anahat Singh confirmed her first World Squash Junior Championships medal by entering the semi-finals of the 2025 edition in Cairo on Thursday. BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND - JULY 29: Anahat Singh of Team India plays a shot against Jada Ross of Team Saint Vincent and the Grenadines during the Men's/Women's Singles Round of 64 Match on day one of the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games at University of Birmingham Hockey & Squash Centre on July 29, 2022 on the Birmingham, England. (Photo by) (Getty Images) The 17-year-old, seeded second, beat Egypt's Malika Elkaraksy 11-6, 13-11, 11-5 in the last eight to break her quarter-final jinx at the prestigious junior event. Anahat had been halted at the quarter-final stage of the previous three junior worlds, losing close matches in 2022, 2023 and 2024 and each of them to Egyptian opponents. This will fill the one medal missing in the promising Indian's rich cabinet at the junior level, with Anahat bagging medals at every other key global age-group event including the British Open and US Open. Despite increasingly dabbling on the senior professional tour -- she is currently the top-ranked Indian woman on the PSA charts at world No.54 -- Anahat had singled out medalling at the junior worlds as one of her season's biggest goals. And facing her toughest test yet in the tournament, she wasn't going to let this quarter-final slip. Running into a left-handed Egyptian and a partisan crowd inside a packed Black Ball Club rooting for their own, Anahat maintained her level and composure. From 5-6 in the first game, Anahat won six straight points to seize the advantage. Malika bounced back in the second game and held two game balls but Anahat dug in and came out a 13-11 winner. With Malika's fight quelled, Anahat soon wrapped up the close contest. Anahat will take on Nadien Elhammamy on Friday for a place in the final. The Egyptian had beaten her in the quarters of the 2024 edition, but the Indian had reversed the result at the JSW Indian Open in Mumbai this year.
Time of India
07-05-2025
- Sport
- Time of India
Anahat Singh up for squash world championship, but Olympic medal is ultimate goal
Anahat Singh of Team India plays a shot against Jada Ross of Team Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (Photo by) NEW DELHI: By the time the chill of Chicago's late spring curls into the glass walls of the squash courts at the University Club, the brightest young star of Indian squash will already be warming is something both graceful and unrelenting about Anahat Singh 's movements. On court, she is a blend of youthful audacity and a veteran's poise. As she prepares to make her mark on the biggest stage of her career — the World Squash Championship 2025 , Chicago — Anahat carries not just her racquet but the hopes of a nation as India's lone woman representative in the prestigious Delhi girl grew up in a family with strong sporting culture. Father Gursharan Singh, a lawyer, and mother Tani Vadehra, an interior designer, both played hockey in their Anahat's elder sister, was a top-ranked U-19 squash player before enrolling at Harvard University for her bachelor's degree. She continues to compete for the Harvard women's squash early brushes, though, were not with squash but badminton. Inspired first by PV Sindhu, she briefly flirted with shuttlecocks before the squash court stole her heart. The speed, the strategy, the raw physicality of it attracted her.'I started playing badminton when I was six years old. When I was eight, I started going to the Delhi Gymkhana Club and started playing squash with my sister. Eventually, I started doing a lot better in squash and enjoyed it a lot more as well,' Anahat told TOI .By 9, she had won her first national title. By 11, she was dominating the U-13 circuit, rising to No. 1 not just in India but also in Asia and came a crowning moment for Anahat. She captured the British Junior Open — a tournament considered the 'Wimbledon of junior squash' — in the U-11 category, stunning higher-ranked players with the cold precision of her drop as the grand stage of Chicago beckons, Anahat stands on the cusp of transitioning from prodigy to a professional powerhouse. For India, Anahat's solo representation in the women's draw is symbolic. It's the torch being passed to a new generation. 'I am just excited to play against the best in the world,' she said. 'That's what I've always wanted — to see how far I can push myself.'At present, Anahat is ranked world No. 60, and every match at the world championships is going to be challenging. And yet, one gets the sense that she relishes it. 'I don't really think about rankings,' she said. 'On court, it's just me, the ball, and the walls. That's all that matters.'Regardless of the outcome in Chicago, Anahat holds immense promise for the future. After squash was included as a medal sport at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, the 17-yearold has now firmly set her eyes on an Olympic medal.'Now that Olympics is in the picture for us squash players for the first time, I'm hopeful I can win a medal at the LA Games,' Anahat, who has two bronze medals (women's team event & mixed doubles) from the 2023 Hangzhou Asian Games , currently, has a full team around her with former pros Gregory Gaultier (of France) and Stephane Galifi (Italy) as full-time coaches. Saurav Ghosal, who has won CWG and Asian Games medals for India, is her mentor.
