Miss Giggles is now a Superstar.

Three years ago, as the Indian squash team celebrated a satisfying outing at the 2023 Asian Games, a 15-year-old kid was already being spoken of as the one to watch. Anahat Singh, the baby of the side in Hangzhou, had lowered the age of the youngest Indian Asiad medallist and raised the bar for an entire generation of sporting aspirants.

For the then 37-year-old Saurav Ghosal, she was the kid who made him realise he was from a different generation — Ghosal was, after all, a three-time national champion before Anahat was born. “I call her Miss Giggles because every time she sees me, she starts laughing. I wish my wife thought I was that funny too! We are from different generations and we do a lot of things differently,” Ghosal had said.

Dismantling a machine

Cut to 2026 and Anahat, now in her final year on the junior circuit, has become the first Indian ever to be crowned the Junior World champion. More significantly, the 18-year-old beat three Egyptians on the trot in the knockouts, including Ruqayya Salem in the final, dismantling a machine that churns out champions like a factory floor.

“I was a little stressed before the final, but honestly not as much as I expected to be. I had played her multiple times before and I had seen her play through the tournament as well. I felt confident about the way I had been playing through the week and the amount of training I had done. I knew it was just one last push,” Anahat said of her campaign in Ontario.

She knew it was her final chance to tick a huge box and while a lot of talented players crumble under the pressure of now-or-never situations, it only brought out her innate fighting spirit. “It pushed me to give it my all and I don’t think I would have played this freely if it wasn’t. I knew how much it meant to check it off my list and I think that made a huge difference,” she admits

A lot has been already written about her talent, her skills, her understanding of the game and her ability to read an opponent and the game situation quicker than most. But beyond the backhands and the peripheral vision and the reach within the four walls of a squash court, it’s the single-minded pursuit of excellence that has been Anahat’s defining trait. That and her mental strength, the complete faith in herself and a disregard for the established world order.

“She is a happy-go-lucky kid who has also always been totally fearless. She has always been very particular about her discipline and her game, that hasn’t changed. But she has become a lot more mature as a person,” her mother Tani Vadehra Singh says.

“She’s fearless and believes very strongly that she can beat anyone in the world, a great quality to have. She’s also someone who hates losing, in a good way. She’s not a bad loser, she just hates it and so she wants to do everything she can to not have to feel that,” Ghosal adds.

“Anahat has the approach of a champion. Whether she plays World No. 1 or No. 20, she steps on court to win, not just compete,” her coach of two years and former World champion Gregory Gaultier declares. Stephane Galifi, her other coach, calls her a shrimp that moves like a lion with an eye to understand her opponent’s game before they actually do.

A champion’s journey

That’s the near-unanimous appraisal from those who have been a part of her journey which started with her affinity for badminton and idol worship of P.V. Sindhu. That journey took her across cities and countries and coaches that include Ritwik Bhattacharya, the flag-bearer of Indian squash for the longest time, Gaultier, Galifi and Ghosal, who is more of a mentor.

It has been a steady rise for Anahat up the rarefied world of squash, a sport that fought off the perception of being a rich man’s networking playground to become the latest entrant to the Olympic movement. It also took her on a path of growth, from a little kid who would not sleep alone to an athlete who is set to carry India’s squash hopes at Los Angeles 2028.

“It’s definitely a privilege with always a little bit of pressure added. A little pressure is always a good thing because you have a lot to play for,” she declares, adding that now that she is no longer a junior, it’s time to step up and play with the big girls on the circuit.

That’s typical teen talk, though, insisting on being all grown up even as the elders around her feel the need to protect her.

“The only time she travelled without us was for the Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games, but that’s because no one else is allowed in the Games Village. At that point, she used to sleep in our room and had never slept on her own. We are now slowly letting her go but still somebody will travel with her till she herself says, ‘Okay, I’m good to go’. She has met so many different kinds of people that she’s a better judge [of people], still not the best though,” Tani, the ever-protective mother, admits.

Ghosal explains that “she needs a bit of pushing in terms of what she needs to do on a daily basis but she listens and she absorbs and she’s smart. As a person, I think she’s probably casual in a lot of ways, very chilled. She likes her Instagram or Snapchat, likes to have chocolate and go out with her friends, just being a teen.

“You need to coax communication out of her. Initially, it’s all monosyllables. She’s not one who asks a lot of questions. You need to prod her and get her to open up. But that’s the whole idea, for her to understand herself better as a person and as a player so that she is more secure when she does play.”

It is easy to judge her results forgetting that she still is a teenager. And despite her professionalism, there is still a lot to do before Anahat becomes the world beater everyone wills her to be.

What unlocks her

“She is able to play the game in a way that a majority of girls do not, because she is multidimensional. But in terms of executing it every single day, there is still a bridge to be crossed, because it’s still not part of her soul. It’s not like she goes on to court and that naturally comes out every time. That kind of assimilation, that progression will be extremely important and I think that will be her biggest unlock as a player,” Ghosal says.

She’s getting there. One step at a time, Miss Giggles is laughing her way to the very top.

Published - August 08, 2026 08:51 am IST