Teen squash star Anahat charts path for excellence

About a year ago, when Saurav Ghosal got on board Team Anahat as mentor and at times also a hands-on coach, he knew that her forehand wasn’t at the level it needed to be. Anahat Singh was told that. But she also had to be shown that.

- Rutvick Mehta

So, India’s 38-year-old retired squash star got on court for a game with the country’s brightest teen talent. The condition: they will play only on the forehand side. The challenge: “let's see if you can beat me,” Ghosal told Anahat. She could not. “She absolutely hates to lose,” Ghosal said. “So, that not only exposed the piece of the puzzle in her game, it also made her realise that ‘if I need to get better and not lose, I need to get this right’. I would play on that fact.”

A year on, that forehand is a lot more secure, and often even lethal.

It showed in the 17-year-old’s outing at the World Junior Championships in Cairo, where Anahat went a step better than last year to secure an individual bronze before losing in the semifinals. That she was the only non-Egyptian in the last four reflected how her game is a handful for most opponents her age at the junior level.