On July 25, 2026, Anahat Singh became the first Indian in history to win a World Junior Squash Championship title. But the more interesting story isn't the scoreline — it's about a kid from Delhi who fell in love with a completely different sport first, followed her big sister into a squash court almost by accident, and ended up becoming the youngest Asian ever to crack the world's top 20. Here's who Anahat Singh actually is.
Quick Facts
| Full name | Anahat Singh |
|---|---|
| Born | 13 March 2008, New Delhi, India |
| Age | 18 |
| School | The British School, New Delhi |
| Height / Weight | 1.65 m (5 ft 5 in) / 45 kg (99 lb) |
| Handedness | Right-handed |
| Mother | Tani Vadehra, interior designer (former field hockey player) |
| Father | Gursharan Singh, lawyer (former field hockey player) |
| Sister | Amira Singh — former India U-19 squash player, now plays for Harvard |
| First sport | Badminton, inspired by watching PV Sindhu |
| Switched to squash | Age 8, following her sister to training |
| Coaches | Saurav Ghosal, Stéphane Galifi, Grégory Gaultier |
| Career-high world ranking | No. 19 (February 2026) — youngest Asian player ever in the top 20 |
| Signature achievement | First Indian to win the World Junior Squash Championships (July 2026) |
Anahat Singh Age and Background
Anahat Singh was born on 13 March 2008 in New Delhi, which makes her 18 today. She's still a student at The British School, New Delhi, meaning she's essentially been juggling board exams and world-ranking points for years — the kind of double life a lot of young athletes have to manage quietly, away from the headlines.
Physically, she's not an imposing figure — 1.65 m (5 ft 5 in), around 45 kg — which makes her game built more on speed, retrieval and composure than raw power, a trait coaches and commentators have repeatedly pointed to as she's climbed the rankings against bigger, more physical opponents.
Anahat Singh Family: Parents, Sister and Where Her Sporting Genes Came From
Her parents aren't from a sporting background in the celebrity sense, but they're both athletes in their own right. Her mother, Tani Vadehra, is an interior designer, and her father, Gursharan Singh, is a lawyer — and both of them used to play field hockey. Her uncle played competitive tennis. So while nobody in the family was a professional athlete, there was clearly a household where sport was just part of life.
The real influence, though, was her elder sister, Amira Singh. Amira was a serious squash player in her own right — one of India's top-rated Under-19 players — before she moved to the US to study at Harvard University, where she still plays for the Harvard women's squash team. As a young child, Anahat used to simply tag along when Amira went to train. That casual, sibling-shadowing routine is essentially how one of India's most promising athletes stumbled into the sport that would define her life.
How Anahat Singh Actually Discovered Squash — It Wasn't Her First Sport
Here's the detail most people miss: squash wasn't Anahat's first love. It was badminton. At around six years old, she watched PV Sindhu play at the India Open in Delhi and became fascinated by the sport, going on to win a few youth-level tournaments herself. She idolised Sindhu, and by her own admission dreamed of one day competing at the Olympics the way Sindhu did.
The switch happened almost by chance. Anahat transitioned to squash at age eight after accompanying her sister Amira, who was already playing the sport at the time. What started as simply keeping her sister company at the club turned into her actual calling — within a few years she was outperforming children years older than her, and by her early teens she was already representing India internationally.
What Growing Up Looked Like for a Teenage Pro Athlete
Most of Anahat's childhood milestones doubled as sporting ones. At 15, she was the youngest member of India's Commonwealth Games contingent in 2022, and admitted she was "really, really nervous" going in because it was the first time she was playing as a senior. Imagine being that age and walking into your first major tournament not as a junior, but up against grown women — and winning your first match anyway.
A year later, at the 2023 Asian Games, she briefly became the youngest-ever Indian Asian Games medallist, at 15 years, six months and 16 days old, before another young athlete, Sanjana Bathula, broke that record days later. That's the world Anahat has lived in for years now — records made and broken within days, milestones measured in months and days rather than seasons.
Behind the scenes, she's been coached by a genuinely elite trio: former Indian squash star Saurav Ghosal, along with French coaches Stéphane Galifi and Grégory Gaultier — meaning her development has combined homegrown mentorship with some of Europe's sharpest squash minds.
The Sister Rivalry — and the Sister Support
It's easy to miss, but there's a quiet family thread running through Anahat's story. While Anahat was becoming India's brightest young squash star at home, Amira — the sister she once simply tagged along with — was carving her own path across the world at Harvard, still playing the sport competitively at collegiate level. Two sisters, one shared sport, two very different stages: one chasing world rankings on the pro tour, the other balancing an Ivy League degree with US college squash. It's the kind of sibling dynamic that probably gets less attention than it deserves.
In Her Own Words: What Winning Means to Her
Anahat doesn't come across as someone chasing headlines. After her World Junior Championship win, she called it a victory that "means the world" to her, after years of perseverance — a fairly modest way to describe becoming a national first. Earlier in her career, describing her nerves ahead of her senior debut at the Commonwealth Games, she was refreshingly candid rather than performative about the pressure she was under.
“I was really, really nervous going into it — it was my first tournament playing as a senior.”
That mix — quiet self-awareness paired with fierce competitiveness on court — seems to be a running thread. After a rough run at the British Junior Open, she spoke about using the time before her next tournament simply to train as hard as she could to "get the best out of my game," rather than making excuses.
From a Delhi Squash Court to India's Olympic Hopes
Squash will make its Olympic debut at the LA 2028 Games, and Anahat — still a schoolgirl balancing exams with a world ranking — is already being spoken about as one of India's best shots at a medal there. Commentators have framed her rise as proof of what dedication, family support and grassroots investment can do, at a time when cricket dominates most of the country's sporting attention.
It's worth sitting with that for a second: a teenager who started out mimicking her sister at badminton and squash courts, largely outside the spotlight, is now one signature away from being a genuine Olympic contender for her country — all before finishing school.
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