Anahat Singh: The 18-Year-Old Making Indian Squash History .
Updated: Sep 19
At 18, Anahat Singh has already been playing squash for more than half her life.
She picked up a racket when she was six. By 11, she was winning international junior titles. At 14, she was walking into the Commonwealth Games as India's youngest athlete.
And now, she has done something no Indian woman had done before.
She is a World Junior Squash Champion.
It started with a racket at six.
Anahat grew up in Delhi and started playing squash when she was six years old.
It didn't take long for the sport to become more than something she did after school.
At 11, she won the British Junior Open Under-13 title, one of the biggest junior squash tournaments in the world. It was an early sign that she wasn't just another talented young player.
She was already competing internationally and winning.
The teenager who kept moving up.
Anahat's rise happened quickly.
At 14, she became the youngest Indian athlete to compete at a Commonwealth Games when she represented India at Birmingham 2022.
She was still a teenager, but she was already sharing courts with experienced international players.
Her junior career continued to build. In 2025, she won the British Junior Open Under-17 title, adding another major junior trophy to her collection.
But there was one title she hadn't managed to win.
The World Junior Championship.
The one that kept getting away
Anahat had come close before.
She reached the quarter-finals in 2023 and again in 2024. In 2025, she went one step further and won bronze.
Close enough to know she could do it.
Not quite there yet.
When she arrived in Canada for the 2026 World Junior Championships, it was her final opportunity to win the title as a junior.
This time, she didn't leave it behind.
Anahat entered the tournament as the top seed and moved through the draw, eventually reaching the final against Egypt's Ruqayya Salem.
Egypt had dominated the women's event for years. No non-Egyptian player had won the girls' title since 2010.
Anahat changed that.
She won the final in straight games, 11-3, 11-7, 11-9.
For the first time, an Indian had won the World Junior Squash Championship.
More than just a junior champion
The title was another chapter in a career that has been moving unusually quickly.
In February 2026, Anahat became the youngest Asian player to enter the PSA women's world top 20.
She has also collected senior titles along the way, including the Indian Squash Open, while continuing to represent India at major international events.
What makes her story special is how early it all started.
Most athletes spend years trying to reach the international stage.
Anahat was already there as a teenager.
She grew up watching the biggest names in squash and then slowly found herself sharing the same courts.
Now, at 18, she has a world junior title of her own.
From a six-year-old picking up a squash racket in Delhi to becoming the first Indian to win the World Junior Championship, Anahat Singh's story is one of a sport becoming a life before she was even old enough to realise it.
Comments