India’s Anahat Singh advanced to the quarterfinals of the Canadian Women’s Open in Toronto on 27 October 2026, defeating England’s Saran Nghiem in four games at the USD 103,750 PSA Silver-level tournament. The 18-year-old sixth seed won 11-6, 4-11, 11-5, 11-7 in the second round after receiving a bye in the opening round. The win set up a quarterfinal against Egypt’s Fayrouz Aboelkheir, the tournament’s top seed, but she withdrew from that match due to injury before it was played.
The PSA Squash Tour confirmed the withdrawal on its website on Tuesday. “India’s Anahat Singh has withdrawn from her Canadian Women’s Open 2026 quarter-final match tomorrow due to injury. The 18-year-old was due to face top seed Fayrouz Aboelkheir in the opening match tomorrow night at Brookfield Place after defeating Saran Nghiem yesterday. Aboelkheir has received a walkover to the semi-finals in Toronto as a result,” the PSA Squash Tour wrote. The withdrawal ended her campaign at the last-eight stage, one win short of a semifinal place.
Anahat beats Nghiem in four games
She made a confident start against Nghiem, who is ranked world No. 52, taking the opening game 11-6. Nghiem responded to take the second game 11-4 and level the contest, but she regained control in the third game, winning 11-5, and closed out the match 11-7 in the fourth. The result extended a run of form that has taken Anahat, currently ranked world No. 15, into the later rounds of back-to-back tournaments in North America.
The quarterfinal draw had promised a stiff test. Aboelkheir, ranked world No. 7, is the top seed in Toronto, and a match against her would have been a measure of how far she has come against the established names on the women’s tour. Anahat is the reigning world junior champion, and her recent results have moved her from junior success into regular contention at senior PSA events. The injury, the nature of which the PSA Squash Tour did not specify, stopped that test from taking place.
The withdrawal also changed the shape of the Toronto draw. Aboelkheir went straight into the semifinals without playing a quarterfinal, and the revised order of play for Wednesday 28 October listed the remaining quarterfinals at Brookfield Place without the scheduled opening match. For her, the timing was hard: she had reached the last eight in good form, and the walkover meant she left Toronto without the chance to play for a semifinal place.
Anahat withdrawal hands Aboelkheir a walkover
The Canadian Open is one of the bigger Silver-level stops on the PSA Tour, with a prize fund of USD 103,750, and a quarterfinal place there is a solid result on its own. Her second-round win over Nghiem added ranking points and another win over a top-60 player to a season that already includes a Gold-level semifinal, and a withdrawal does not take away the quarterfinal result itself, since the win over Nghiem stands on the records, but it does mean the Toronto run ends with an unfinished feel.
Anahat is India’s leading woman player on the PSA Tour, and her progress in Toronto followed a demanding run of tournaments in the United States and Canada. The PSA Squash Tour announcement gave no return date and no further detail about the injury.
Recent form behind the Toronto run
The Toronto result followed a standout week at the Silicon Valley Open in Redwood City in the United States, where Anahat reached her maiden semifinal at a PSA Gold-level event. She beat world No. 1 and top seed Nour El Sherbini and sixth seed Salma Hany in back-to-back matches before losing to Malaysia’s Sivasangari Subramaniam in four games in the semifinal. That run, against two of the biggest names in the women’s game, was widely noted as a sign of her rise on the senior tour.
Last month, Anahat won a silver medal in the women’s squash category at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games in Japan, India’s first-ever silver medal in the women’s squash category at the Asian Games, according to reports of the tournament. She lost the gold medal match to Sivasangari Subramaniam, the same player who later beat her in the Silicon Valley semifinal. The Asian Games medal, the Silicon Valley Open semifinal and the Canadian Open quarterfinal together make up a run of three strong results in quick succession.
For Anahat, the next step is recovery from the injury that forced her out of the Toronto quarterfinal. Her quarterfinal place in Canada stands, her semifinal opponent in Toronto became Aboelkheir by walkover, and her recent results leave her ranked world No. 15 as she waits for her next tournament.