{"id":3223,"date":"2026-07-26T23:24:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T17:54:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsaxis.com\/?p=3223"},"modified":"2026-07-26T23:24:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T17:54:22","slug":"anahat-makes-history-becomes-first-indian-world-junior-squash-champion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsaxis.com\/?p=3223","title":{"rendered":"Anahat makes history, becomes first Indian World Junior squash champion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"450\" height=\"450\" data-id=\"3224\" src=\"https:\/\/newsaxis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/sports-7.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3224\" srcset=\"https:\/\/newsaxis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/sports-7.png 450w, https:\/\/newsaxis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/sports-7-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/newsaxis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/sports-7-150x150.png 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nigara-on-the-Lake (Canada), Anahat Singh made history on Saturday, becoming the first Indian to be crowned World Junior squash champion when she won the women&#8217;s title in the World Squash Junior Individual Championships at Nigara-on-the-Lake in Ontario, Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>World No 20 and top seed Anahat, who won a bronze medal by winning the semifinal in the competition last year, defeated Egyptian second seed Ruqayya Salem 11-3, 11-7, 11-9 in the women\u2019s final to claim the biggest title of her career so far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Anahat also became the first non-Egyptian player to win the World Junior Squash Championship title since Amanda Sobhy\ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8 in 2010. By winning the title on Saturday, she broke the 15-year title-winning streak of Egyptian players, which started in 2011.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On Friday night, Anahat Singh became the first Indian in 21 years to reach the final of the World Squash Junior Championships, defeating Egypt&#8217;s Barb Sameh in four games. She continued her brilliant season by defeating another Egyptian in the summit clash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m really happy. I played Barb a few months ago at the British Junior Open, and it was a close match like this, so I knew I\u2019d have to play really well,&#8221; Anahat said after her semifinal win. &#8220;I didn&#8217;t play my best yesterday, and I knew I had to come out today and show what I can do on court. I&#8217;ve played in four World Juniors and lost in the quarters and semis, so reaching the final has made my parents and coaches really happy, but the tournament&#8217;s not over yet.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the men&#8217;s competition, Egypt&#8217;s top seed Mohamad Zakaria continued his pursuit of a third World Junior title. He defeated compatriot Selfeldin Refaay in straight games, reaching his fourth consecutive final.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Zakaria will face fellow Egyptian and second seed Adam Hawal, who advanced when Marwan Assal retired injured during the third game of their semifinal. Hawal had already built a 2-0 lead before Assal had to withdraw.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nigara-on-the-Lake (Canada), Anahat Singh made history on Saturday, becoming the first Indian to be crowned World Junior squash champion when she won the women&#8217;s title in the World Squash Junior [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3224,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-display","category-sports","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsaxis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsaxis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsaxis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsaxis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsaxis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3223"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsaxis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3225,"href":"https:\/\/newsaxis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3223\/revisions\/3225"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsaxis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsaxis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsaxis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsaxis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}