Anahat Singh: The rising star of squash

Singh was one of the fastest movers in the top 100 last season, with 12 titles from 18 PSA events

- Arun Janardhan

Anahat Singh at the JSW India Open in March.

Anahat Singh, on an average day, has plenty going on. There is school, which for a 17-year-old means impending board exams. There are friends to banter with, episodes of The Summer I turned Pretty on Amazon Prime to sneak in, two dogs Ollie and Bailey to entertain, and her hobby of painting.

There is also squash, the sport in which she is currently ranked 45 in the world, the top Indian player in the Professional Squash Association (PSA) Tour rankings. One of the fastest movers in the top 100 last season (2024-25), she had 12 titles from 18 PSA tournaments. She played nine Challenger events, winning eight of them, including a pair of Challenger 15s in India towards the end of the season. She had a 29-match winning streak, with 23 of her 36 wins coming in straight games.

"Rarely has there been a more impressive season in PSA Squash Tour History than the campaign Anahat Singh has enjoyed in 2024/25," noted an article on the PSA website. Not surprisingly, Anahat shared PSA's young player of the season title with Egypt's Amina Orfi in June.

Among her impressive results was a bronze medal in the World Squash Junior Championships in Cairo in July, the first Indian to get it since Dipika Pallikal in 2010.

"I saw it on Instagram, as soon as it got done," Singh says about the statistic, over a video call from her home in Delhi. "I saw a Reel which said, I think, a historic medal after 15 years or something. I was obviously really happy, but I still had a semifinal to play, so I didn't really think about just getting a bronze..."

Her goal at the beginning of the year was to get into the top 50 rankings and now having achieved that, her targets have had to realign a bit, aiming for the top 30.