Abhay Singh — The Silver He Didn’t Come For
Chennai’s Abhay Singh reached the Asian Games men’s singles final without dropping a game, then lost it in straight games to Malaysia’s Ng Eain Yow. The silver puts him beside Saurav Ghosal in Indian squash history. The gold would have put him in Los Angeles.
Abhay Singh won 12 games in a row at the Asian Games and then lost the three that decided the title. In the men’s singles final at the Nagoya Kinjo Futo Arena on Sunday, Malaysia’s Ng Eain Yow, the defending champion, beat him 11-9, 11-5, 11-5 in 44 minutes. Abhay, the second seed, takes silver.
He is only the second Indian man to win one. Saurav Ghosal won silver in Incheon in 2014 and in Hangzhou in 2023, where Ng also beat him in the final, and until this week no other Indian man had reached the men’s singles final. No Indian has won it.
The defeat cost him more than a gold medal. Squash makes its Olympic debut at Los Angeles in 2028, and the Asian Games singles champion qualifies directly. That place is now Ng’s. Abhay, 28, and at No. 26 India’s highest-ranked man, will have to earn his on the world rankings, as will Anahat Singh, who lost the women’s final to Sivasangari Subramaniam later on Sunday. “I didn’t come here for silver, nothing to celebrate to be really honest,” he said afterwards, according to myKhel.
It is still the best singles result of his career, and it answers a charge he named himself. “There was a lot of talk, people saying I’ve only done well in team events and doubles events,” he said after Saturday’s semi-final. Three years ago in Hangzhou he won India the men’s team gold by saving two match balls against Pakistan. In December 2021 he was close to giving the sport up. The route between those points, and the rebuild he began after Hangzhou, explains why he was in Sunday’s final, and how far he still has to go.
Twelve games in a row
The draw started gently and stayed that way for longer than it might have. On Wednesday he beat Thailand’s Arkaradet Arkarahirunya 11-1, 11-0, 11-2, three points conceded in the match. On Thursday Sri Lanka’s Ravindu Laksiri took 14 points in 21 minutes. On Friday, against Ryunosuke Tsukue, described by UNI as Japan’s top player, he won 11-4, 11-3, 11-6 in about half an hour, the result that guaranteed a medal. That was 30 points conceded across three matches.
The semi-final was the first real test. Pakistan’s Muhammad Ashab Irfan, the world No. 49, had knocked out Veer Chotrani, India’s other entrant and the fourth seed, 3-1 in the quarter-finals. Abhay beat him 11-3, 12-10, 11-6 in 35 minutes. The second game was the only one before the final in which an opponent reached double figures.
Afterwards he gave much of the credit for his composure to his coach, James Willstrop, the former world No. 1, and to a simpler point about opportunity. “When an event comes once in 3-4 years, I think you turn up and do well,” he told myKhel.
Three games against the champion
Ng came in as the more established player. PTI listed him at world No. 18 (ANI had 17), he was the defending champion, and this was his third consecutive Asian Games final, according to myKhel, a run that began in 2018. He had beaten Pakistan’s Noor Zaman 11-7, 11-2, 11-4 in 26 minutes in his semi-final. By PTI’s count, Sunday was Abhay’s eighth defeat by him.
The first game decided the match. Abhay led 2-1, fell behind 3-6 and worked his way back to 8-8, according to Telangana Today’s account. Ng reached 10-8, two game balls, and converted the second. DT Next timed that game at 21 minutes, nearly half the match. In the second Ng went 7-3 up on a run of Abhay errors and closed it out 11-5. In the third Abhay led 4-2; Ng levelled at 4-4, pulled away through 7-5 and 9-5, and at 10-5 Abhay’s last slice found the tin. Abhay did not reach 10 points in any of the three games.
“I think he was just better all around,” Abhay said, per myKhel. To ANI he said he did not think “much went wrong on my end”. His attention had already moved on. India’s defence of the men’s team title begins on Monday, and “we have a gold medal to try and win next week,” he said.
Chennai, by accident
Abhay was born in Chennai on 3 September 1998. His family lives about five minutes from the Indian Squash Academy, where he trains every day, according to a 2023 profile in The Weekend Leader. His father moved to Chennai from Uttar Pradesh and funded his squash until government support became regular; his mother travelled the junior circuit with him when he was too young to do it alone.
How he started depends on which interview you read. In 2024 he told The Bridge that he took up the game at eight, by chance: a neighbour introduced him to it after plans to join a tennis camp fell through, and he saw squash at first as a route to studying abroad. In an earlier interview with Sportskeeda, given when he was 16, his mother took him to the academy, which she regularly walked past, and enrolled him in its school coaching.
He committed to squash at 16 or 17 and turned professional in 2017. He studied at Guru Nanak College in Chennai. He is unsentimental about the economics. “There’s no significant money to be made here,” he told Sportskeeda in an interview after he received the Arjuna Award. “You’ll need to start with full pockets and expect them to be empty by the time you’re done.”
The junior record was solid rather than spectacular: Asian Junior Championships bronze in Kuala Lumpur in 2016, at 17, and team gold at the Asian Juniors in Hong Kong in 2017. In 2019 he won team silver and singles bronze at the South Asian Games in Kathmandu, and in 2020 the British Under-23 Open.
Then it stalled. “Pre-COVID, I was playing the best squash of my life,” he told The Indian Express in 2023. In December 2021, after missing selection for Indian squads, he was close to quitting, The Weekend Leader reported; the game had stopped being enjoyable, he told The Bridge. An email from the federation about trials for the Commonwealth Games changed his mind, he told The Indian Express. He made the team for Birmingham 2022.
The climb that followed was quick. In May 2022 he won his first PSA Challenger title, in Lorient, France. By Sportskeeda’s count he won five Challenger events that year and rose from No. 144 in January to No. 74 in December. That November he was in the India side that won the men’s title at the Asian Team Championships in Cheongju, Korea, for the first time. He also won his first senior national title, beating Velavan Senthilkumar in the final.
Two match balls in Hangzhou
The match that made his name was a team rubber. In the men’s team final at the Hangzhou Games on 30 September 2023, Pakistan led 1-0 after Nasir Iqbal beat Mahesh Mangaonkar 11-8, 11-2, 11-3. Ghosal levelled by beating Muhammad Asim Khan 11-5, 11-1, 11-3. That left Abhay against Noor Zaman for the gold, three nights after Pakistan had beaten India in the pool stage.
He won the first game 11-7 and lost the next two 9-11, 8-11. Zaman led 9-7 in the fourth before Abhay took it 11-9. In the fifth Zaman reached 10-8 and two match balls. Abhay won the next four points, 12-10, and India had their first men’s team gold since Incheon in 2014.
“We should have won three nights ago also as we were the better team,” Abhay said afterwards. Ghosal put it in context.
“Considering the circumstances, it was surely the biggest win of Abhay’s career.”
That was Ghosal after the final, as reported by Onmanorama. Abhay left Hangzhou with a second medal, mixed doubles bronze with Anahat Singh, then 15. That September the PSA had named him its Challenger Tour player of the year for 2022-23.
The rebuild
Hangzhou did not fix his ranking. He had gone 14 months without climbing, he told PTI in December 2024, explaining why he had changed everything after the Games. “I felt like I had come to a standstill on the world tour,” he said. He changed coaches, moving to Willstrop and David Campion, and brought in a new physio, a new trainer and two mental coaches. “Everyone taking care of me is new now. It’s helped,” he said that December, by which point he was No. 54. “I’m the fittest I’ve ever been and feeling the best I’ve ever felt.” IndiaSportsHub reported in June this year that he lost 22 kg in 2025, and named Willstrop and Harinder Pal Sandhu, his team-mate in Hangzhou, as the coaches who had been instrumental.
The results followed. In January 2025 President Droupadi Murmu presented him with the Arjuna Award for 2024. He broke into the top 50 in March and won the Hyder Trophy, a Challenger event, in May. In June he and Velavan retained the men’s title at the Asian Doubles Championships in Kuching and he won the mixed with Anahat, repeating the double he had won in Johor in 2024 with Velavan and Joshna Chinappa. In December he was in the India team that won its first Squash World Cup, at home in Chennai, beating Hong Kong’s Alex Lau 7-1, 7-4, 7-4 in the final as India swept the top seeds 3-0. He finished the year at No. 29.
This year went further. He won the Indian Open in Mumbai in March, beating Chotrani in the final, a year after losing the final there. In April, at the Grasshopper Cup in Zurich, he beat the world No. 13, Aly Abou Eleinen, to reach his first quarter-final at PSA Gold level, and IndiaSportsHub put him at No. 22 on the live list, his career high. In June he and Velavan won a third straight Asian Doubles men’s title. At the end of August he won the Tuanku Muhriz Trophy in Seremban, his 13th PSA title, beating Hong Kong’s Henry Leung 12-10 in the fifth game. “My ultimate goal is to win the Asian Games individual gold and qualify for the 2028 Olympics,” he told the New Straits Times that week.
| Year | Event | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Asian Junior Championships, Kuala LumpurSingles, aged 17 | Bronze |
| 2017 | Asian Junior Championships, Hong KongTeam event; turned professional the same year | Gold |
| 2019 | South Asian Games, KathmanduTeam silver; singles bronze | 2 medals |
| 2020 | British Under-23 OpenBeat Ben Smith 3-0 in the final | Title |
| 2022 | Lorient, FranceFirst PSA Challenger title, in May; one of five that year | Title |
| 2022 | Asian Team Championships, CheongjuIndia men’s first title at the event | Gold |
| 2023 | Asian Games, HangzhouMen’s team, the deciding rubber won 12-10 in the fifth; mixed doubles with Anahat Singh | Gold, bronze |
| 2024 | Asian Doubles Championships, JohorMen’s with Velavan Senthilkumar; mixed with Joshna Chinappa | 2 gold |
| 2024 | Willingdon Masters, Goodfellow Classic, Tuanku Muhriz TrophyThree PSA titles | 3 titles |
| 2025 | Arjuna AwardFor 2024, presented on 17 January | Award |
| 2025 | Asian Doubles Championships, KuchingMen’s with Velavan Senthilkumar; mixed with Anahat Singh | 2 gold |
| 2025 | Squash World Cup, ChennaiBeat Alex Lau as India beat top seeds Hong Kong 3-0 | Gold |
| 2026 | Indian Open, MumbaiBeat Veer Chotrani 3-0 in the final | Title |
| 2026 | Asian Doubles Championships, SarawakMen’s with Velavan Senthilkumar, a third straight title | Gold |
| 2026 | Tuanku Muhriz Trophy, SerembanBeat Henry Leung 12-10 in the fifth; his 13th PSA title | Title |
| 2026 | Asian Games, Aichi–NagoyaMen’s singles; lost the final to Ng Eain Yow 9-11, 5-11, 5-11 | Silver |
The road to Los Angeles
The Asian Games gold was the shortest route to Los Angeles, and it has gone. Under the qualification system published in February, each Olympic singles draw has 16 players. Five places go to continental champions, and Nagoya was the first of those events. Eight go on the PSA world rankings, which The Bridge’s explainer dates to the list of 22 May 2028. The rest are a host place, a universality place and the winner of a 24-player final qualifier in June 2028. Most countries will be limited to one player per event.
That makes his standing at home matter almost as much as his standing in the world. Chotrani, the world No. 38, beat him in five games at the World Championships in May. “I’m ranked number one on the Indian team right now,” Abhay said on Sunday. “Of course now the plan is to get that world ranking up and qualify on my world ranking.” And: “The LA Olympics dream is not done, this is just a bonus to be really honest.”
First comes the team event, which starts on Monday with India defending the title he won them in Hangzhou. In 2023 he saved two match balls to win a gold. In Nagoya he reached a final without dropping a game and never reached 10 points in it. Between now and May 2028, the distance between those two matches will be measured in ranking points.
Team bronze. India’s defence of the men’s team title ended in the semi-finals on 1 October, a 2-1 defeat by Malaysia. Abhay lost the opening rubber to Ng again, 8-11, 8-11, 8-11 in 27 minutes; Chotrani levelled by beating Sanjay Jeeva 11-4, 11-8, 11-5, before Ameeshenraj Chandaran beat Velavan Senthilkumar 3-1. In the quarter-final India beat Kuwait 2-0, Abhay sealing it against Ammar Altamimi 11-3, 11-4, 11-8. The bronze is his fourth Asian Games medal.
The title. Malaysia beat Pakistan 2-0 in the final on 2 October; Ng clinched it, beating Noor Zaman in five games after trailing 2-1.
Sourcing. ISJ’s carousel ISJ_AG2026_Abhay_Profile (8 slides, 27 September 2026), checked against PTI (via ThePrint and Deccan Chronicle), ANI (via Asianet Newsable), myKhel, Telangana Today, DT Next, UNI, All India Radio, The Express Tribune (Pakistan), chaseyoursport and Squashinfo for the Nagoya draw and final; Onmanorama and Tribune for Hangzhou 2023; The Bridge (February 2024 profile, May 2025, June 2026), The Weekend Leader, The Indian Express (as republished), Sportskeeda (three profiles and interviews), ThePrint/PTI (December 2024 interview), IndiaSportsHub (April and June 2026), the New Straits Times (August 2026), The Statesman, Olympics.com, Outlook, Tribune and the Asian Squash Federation for the career; Wikipedia for date of birth, junior results and the finals table; Squashinfo and The Bridge for the LA28 system. Since publication: DD India, Deccan Chronicle, Outlook/PTI and Malay Mail.
Corrections to the carousel. Slide 2: Ng Eain Yow “world No. 17” — ANI’s figure; PTI, Deccan Chronicle, chaseyoursport and the NST (August) give No. 18. Slide 3: “I’m the fittest I’ve ever been” — said to PTI in December 2024, before the 2025 weight loss IndiaSportsHub reports, not after it as the slide’s order implies. Slide 3: “By March 2025 the papers were writing about an ‘all new Abhay Singh’” — no published source found; not used. Slide 3: Cyrus Poncha as mentor “since day one” — quote not found (a Sportskeeda interview from his junior years thanks a “Cyrus Sir” among the academy’s coaches); not used. Slide 3: David Campion listed among coaches before Willstrop and Sandhu — PTI (December 2024) has Campion coaching him alongside Willstrop after Hangzhou. Slide 5: the 2025 Asian Doubles placed in Kuala Lumpur — Tribune and the Asian Squash Federation put them at Arena Emas, Kuching, Sarawak (Wikipedia says Kuala Lumpur). Slide 6: Mangaonkar’s defeat “none of them close” — the first game was 8-11. Slide 8: “There is nothing to celebrate here. I did not come here to win silver.” — a tidied version; the published words are “I didn’t come here for silver, nothing to celebrate to be really honest” (myKhel). Slide 8: the “full pockets” quote is cut short (Sportskeeda continues “…by the time you’re done”) and was advice to anyone choosing the sport; the interview is undated on the page but postdates the Arjuna Award (January 2025). Slide 8: “3 Asian Games medals” — correct on 27 September; four after the team bronze on 1 October.
Flag — the start. Two origin stories: a neighbour after a tennis camp fell through, at eight (The Bridge, 2024; the slide’s version), and his mother taking him to the academy (Sportskeeda, at 16). Both are given in the copy.
Flag — rankings. Abhay at the Games: No. 26 (PTI, ANI, The Express Tribune, UNI, Wikipedia); DT Next gives 24, his August figure per the NST. The No. 22 career high is IndiaSportsHub’s live-list figure (25 April 2026), matched by Wikipedia; Squashinfo’s player page shows an out-of-date career high. The “eighth loss” to Ng is PTI’s count alone.
Flag — other conflicts. DT Next names Nasir Iqbal as his semi-final opponent; The Express Tribune, All India Radio, myKhel and Squashinfo have Muhammad (Ashab) Irfan. The first game of the final is timed at 21 minutes (DT Next) and 22 (chaseyoursport). The 22 kg weight loss is IndiaSportsHub’s figure alone; Sportskeeda, citing The Indian Express, reports a 20 kg loss in his teens. A myKhel quote in which he names his coach as “James Woodstraw” is paraphrased, not quoted. Hangzhou’s Games are officially the 2022 Asian Games, held in 2023; some sources date his medals 2022. ISJ’s Anahat Singh article gives Kuala Lumpur for the 2025 Asian Doubles; this piece follows Tribune and the ASF.
Fact-check, 28 October. The 2025 Asian Doubles venue is confirmed as Arena Emas, Kuching (Asian Squash Federation; Tribune, 26 June 2025); the Anahat Singh article has been reported for correction. “Captained” India at the 2025 World Cup was cut: no report found (IANS squad list, The Statesman, Squashinfo) names a captain. The slide said only that he was in the team.
