Anahat Singh applied the finishing touches as India created history by defeating Hong Kong China in the final to win the Squash World Cup 2025 title at the Express Avenue Mall in Chennai on Sunday.
The win marked India’s maiden Squash World Cup title, improving on their previous best finish of a bronze medal at the 2023 edition.
The Indian squash team, seeded second, did not lose a single match en route to the title.
After blanking Switzerland and Brazil by identical 4-0 margins in the group stage ties, India dominated South Africa and two-time winners Egypt 3-0 in the quarter and semi-finals, respectively, to earn a title clash at the mixed-team squash event.
On Sunday, veteran Joshna Chinappa, 79th in the PSA rankings, gave India the perfect start as she stunned world No. 37 Lee Ka Yi 3-1 (7-3, 2-7, 7-5, 7-1) in the opening women’s singles rubber.
Asian Games medallist Abhay Singh, India’s best-ranked men’s singles player at world No. 29, followed up perfectly as he did not drop a beat and outplayed the 42nd-ranked Alex Lau 3-0 (7-1, 7-4, 7-4) to give India a 2-0 lead.
Playing to seal off a win and a historic title, the 17-year-old Anahat Singh stepped up and handled the pressure spectacularly.
Up against world No. 31 Tomato Ho, the Indian squash player, ranked 28th, was clinical as she picked up a 3-0 (7-2, 7-2, 7-5) win in the third rubber, ensuring India did not need men’s singles national champion Velavan Senthilkumar to enter the court against Henry Leung in the final match.
The victory also made India only the fourth nation after Australia, England and Egypt to win the Squash World Cup title in its five editions. This was also the third straight time that the meet was held in Chennai.
Squash is all set to make its Olympic debut at LA 2028.
