Familiar foe Sivasangari ends Anahat Singh’s brilliant run at Silicon Valley Open squash

Anahat Singh brilliant run at the Silicon Valley Open 2026 squash tournament came to an abrupt end in the semifinals after the Indian lost to Malaysia’s Sivasangari Subramaniam in Redwood City, USA, on Friday.

https://x.com/PSASquashTour/status/2113803404325879927?s=20

The 18-year-old Indian squash player made the brighter start and pocketed the opening game, but Sivasangari hit back in the next three to win the match 3-1 (11-5, 6-11, 4-11, 7-11), securing a place in the final of the PSA Gold tournament.

This was world No. 15 Anahat Singh’s third defeat against the fourth-ranked Sivasangari in two months. Sivasangari beat the Indian teenager in the women’s singles squash final at the Asian Games 2026 in Japan last month after getting the better of her in the quarterfinals of the London Squash Classic.

Sivasangari Subramaniam has beaten Anahat Singh thrice in the last two months. Pics: PSA Squash

However, the Malaysian ace heaped high praise on her young opponent after the match. “Anahat is very talented and so dangerous,” said Sivasangari. “She’s definitely amongst the top girls now, and she’s still so young.

“Coming into today’s match, I started a bit slow but got myself back into it, and I’m glad with the way I finished it.

“Obviously it’s easy to fall into her game; it wasn’t really a ‘who’s playing the best shot’ kind of game, but I needed to find my accuracy and once I found that, the game changed.”

Malaysian squash for Anahat & Abhay who settle for silver medals, miss Olympic quotas

The loss capped off a great run for Anahat. She had reached the last four by edging Egypt’s Salma Hany, the world No. 14, in a five-game quarterfinal, coming through a 42-minute battle 3-2 (4-11, 11-8, 4-11, 11-2, 11-5). That win made her the first Indian woman to reach the semifinals of a PSA Tour Gold-level event since 2019. Joshna Chinappa was the last one to manage the feat.

The standout moment of her campaign, however, had arrived in the second round, when she stunned eight-time world champion and world No. 3 Nour El Sherbini of Egypt for the biggest win of her young career so far.

Anahat had opened her run with a straight games win over another Egyptian, Nour Aboulmakarim. She was the only Indian in the draw at this year’s Silicon Valley Open.