Anahat Singh did not waste any time storming off the court after her last singles point was played at the Asian Games .
Anahat certainly couldn’t again. Anahat was hitting the tin with her drops and clipping the side walls even as Sivasangari wasn’t missing anything. She reeled off eight straight points, and did not let her opponent find a way back again. Anahat engineered a memorable fightback against Satomi from two games down. Against Sivasangari, despite being more competitive in the third game, she couldn’t.
Their only previous contest, at the 2025 British Open, was a lot closer, where the Indian went toe-to-toe with her in the first game, won the second before the Malaysian upper her level. The Indian kicked things off by going up 3-1, until Sivasangari went up and stormed ahead. The 18-year-old smacked the ball in frustration during the second game. Those were the kind of signs of frustration that weren’t there in her semi-final against world No.6 Satomi Watanabe.
Anahat had been loud and clear about the gold being her goal at the Asian Games. It couldn’t be ticked off, even though the young Indian’s ranking, and the probability that she is going to, at least very least stay there if not rise higher, is bound to keep her Olympic dream alive unless something extraordinary happens. More so with the added reward: a ticket to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics almost two years out.
She blazed into the final of the PSA Squash Tour Finals in June, defeating the current world No.1 Amina Orfi before going down to the then No.1, Hania El Hammamy. This is a teen who is likely to see this as a gold gone — doesn’t matter that the silver grabbed has not been done by any other woman squash player in the country. Sivasangari entered this continental stage as the player to beat, not just in Asia but in the world. In her next tournament, the London Squash Classic in September, she dismantled Anahat while giving her just eight points across the two-game contest.
