Anahat Singh Targets World's Top 10 By June 2027; Sourav Ghosal Backs Her Ability

Anahat Singh has already shown she can beat the best players in the world. The next challenge is to do it consistently. Her goal is to break into the world's top 10 by the end of the current squash season in June 2027, and mentor Sourav Ghosal believes she has the game to make it happen. For now, though, the 18-year-old will have to put that pursuit on hold after withdrawing from the quarterfinals of the Canadian Women's Open 2026, a USD 103,750 PSA Silver-level tournament, because of an injury.

Anahat was scheduled to face top seed Fayrouz Aboelkheir in Wednesday's opening match at Brookfield Place. Her withdrawal handed the Egyptian a walkover into the semifinals.

The Indian had played just one match at the tournament, beating Britain's Saran Nghiem 11-6, 4-11, 11-5, 11-7 on Monday after receiving a first-round bye.

The injury comes at the end of a remarkable year for Anahat, who has emerged as one of Indian sport's biggest breakout stars. She ended her junior career in July as the reigning World Junior Squash Champion before making history at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games, where she became the first Indian woman to reach the singles final and won silver.

She has also made significant strides on the senior circuit. Earlier this month, Anahat beat eight-time world champion and world No. 3 Nour El Sherbini 11-8, 11-8, 11-7 at the Silicon Valley Open. She followed that with a victory over world No. 14 Salma Hany to become the first Indian woman since 2019 to reach a PSA Gold-level semifinal.

Those results have taken her to a career-high world ranking of No. 15, making her the youngest Asian player in squash history to break into the top 20, surpassing a record previously held by Nicol David.

Ghosal, who has won nine Asian Games medals across his career, believes the results reflect the level Anahat has reached. The priority now is to ensure she can reproduce those performances regularly.

"Anahat has reached a stage where she has the ability to beat top-10 players regularly," Ghosal told NDTV in an exclusive interview. "The next step is to make that level of performance more consistent. She has already shown that she can compete with the best, and now it is about developing the game and the confidence to deliver those performances week after week, against different opponents and in different conditions."

That process has involved expanding the range of options available to her on court. Ghosal said the focus has been on ensuring Anahat can adapt her game to different opponents rather than rely on a single approach.

"With Anahat, we have experimented with several variations in her game," he said. "At this stage of her development, it is important that she does not become predictable. We have been working on different ways of constructing rallies, varying the pace and making better tactical decisions, depending on the opponent. The idea is to give her more options on court, so she can adapt rather than rely on one particular style of play."

The next step is physical development, particularly power and endurance. As Anahat moves higher up the rankings, she will have to cope with the demands of longer matches and the intensity of facing the world's leading players more frequently.

"The next stage for Anahat is to improve her power and endurance," Ghosal said. "As she moves up the rankings and plays the top players more regularly, the physical demands of the game will increase. She needs to be able to sustain her intensity over longer matches, recover quickly and maintain the quality of her shots under pressure. The technical and tactical foundation is important, but developing physically will be crucial to taking her game to the next level."

The scale of the challenge was evident at the Asian Games, where a gold medal would have required Anahat to beat the strongest players in the field. Ghosal acknowledged that defeating Japan's Satomi Watanabe was always going to be a difficult task, given the level at which the Japanese player has been performing.

"We did not necessarily expect Anahat to beat Satomi Watanabe in Asian Games, given the level at which Watanabe has been playing," he said. "But we knew that if Anahat was going to win gold, she would have to get past the very best. That meant potentially beating both Watanabe and Malaysia's Sivasangari Subramaniam, who brings a different kind of challenge with her power and attacking game. We understood the scale of the challenge, even if the exact outcome was difficult to predict."

Anahat now has until June 2027 to make up the five places separating her from her target. Her immediate priority will be recovering from the injury that cut short her Canadian campaign. Beyond that, the emphasis will be on consistency, tactical variety and the physical strength to sustain her level against the world's best.

The ambition is clear. Having risen from junior world champion to world No. 15 in a year, Anahat is now aiming to take the next step and establish herself among the top 10 in the senior game.

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