Squash Roadmap: An Established Circuit, With the Olympics Arriving in 2028

Saurav Ghosal became the first Indian male squash player to break into the PSA world top 10, competed for 22 years before retiring in 2024 and was appointed Sports Commissioner of the new World Premier Squash league to help oversee the sport’s competitive structure as it prepares to enter the Olympic programme for the first time at Los Angeles 2028. That last detail matters for planning purposes: squash has established Indian infrastructure today, but its Olympic debut is still ahead.

The SRFI Domestic Pathway

Age-group structure

The Squash Rackets Federation of India runs junior competition across five age tiers: Under-11, Under-15, Under-17, Under-19 and Under-23, with 24 state-level squash associations affiliated nationally. The National Junior Squash Development Programme specifically targets ages 5-15 for beginner coaching, an early and deliberate grassroots pipeline compared to some other individual sports in this series.

The Chennai base and the Indian Squash Academy

SRFI is headquartered in Chennai, home to the Indian Squash Academy, one of the sport’s central training institutions nationally. A serious squash family should treat Chennai’s institutional depth, alongside whichever state association is locally active, as the sport’s practical starting point.

Academic Management

Squash’s training schedule, built around court time and physical conditioning comparable to other individual racquet sports, is manageable alongside regular schooling through the junior age tiers. NIOS’s On-Demand exam system becomes the practical solution once the national junior circuit or international junior exposure starts conflicting with a fixed school exam calendar, the pattern this series describes across every individual sport.

The Foreign University Pathway

Squash is not yet an Olympic sport, but it does have NCAA presence in the United States as a varsity sport at a number of colleges, particularly in the northeast. This platform did not find an individually documented Indian case using this scholarship route during this research. A family with a genuinely competitive Under-17 or Under-19 national ranking should research individual programmes directly, since squash recruiting in the US often runs through more direct coach contact than the larger, more heavily trafficked NCAA sports this series describes elsewhere.

Risk Ladder for Squash

Level 1: World Championship, Asian Games and Commonwealth Games selection, the senior national team and, from 2028 onward, Olympic selection for the first time in the sport’s history. India’s TOPS support structure applies to squash at this tier the same way it does for other Asian Games disciplines.

Level 2: PSA World Tour ranking points and prize money for players who reach a genuinely competitive international level, alongside Railway and other government sports-quota routes for players at state and national level.

Level 3: Coaching (Indian Squash Academy and state association coaching roles, a field that has grown alongside the sport’s own institutional depth in Chennai), physical education teaching with a squash specialisation and SRFI state association roles.

Level 4: Government exams. A player who kept academic pace through school and NIOS holds the same foundation this series describes for SSC CGL, banking and state PSC exams.

Level 5: Sports administration, following Saurav Ghosal’s own move into a governance role (Sports Commissioner of World Premier Squash) after his playing career, alongside the general professional track this series describes for players who move fully outside competitive squash.

Financial Support Available

Khelo India scholarship: Squash is covered under Khelo India’s Youth Games and Talent Development structure (verify current figures at kheloindia.gov.in).

TOPS scheme: Support available for India’s top-ranked squash players at Asian Games and World Championship level (verify current figures at yas.gov.in).

Indian Squash Academy, Chennai: The sport’s central institutional training base nationally.

Railway sports quota: A government-employment route for squash players at state and national level.

Realistic Timelines