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“You need to have a special brand of gumption and be cut from a very special kind of cloth to be a globally successful squash player – a true star. Squash is not an easy sport to pick up.

As someone who was on the school lawn tennis team, I can tell you it’s a very different beast to any other racquet sport. But, just like any other sport, some of the basic fundamental blocks of building both physical prowess and mental strength remain the same….

Saurav is India’s most successful and most decorated male squash player, having won 4 World Championship medals, 9 Asian Games medals, 3 Commonwealth Games medals, 4 Asian Championship medals, amongst other accolades. He was also the first and till date only Indian male squash player to break into the World Top 10.

“At the end of the day, it’s your internal drive – how badly you want to play the sport and how much you love it. And this is true for any sport you play. At the highest level, you have to genuinely love it, because there is a lot of sacrifice that goes into it. I don’t want to use the word sacrifice, it’s more the choices you make. And they are your choices because you enjoy doing this more than other people would, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to sustain it for long enough….

“If you love it then even if you are stuck on Mt. Everest, you will find a way to figure it out.”

Like Diego Elias, who is (number) 3 in the world right now (in the men’s singles PSA rankings) and a former number 1, is from Peru. No one (top squash player) has ever come out of Peru. No one. But Diego loves the game. His dad is to play and was a good player in Peru.

And he has come out, become world champion and world number one. And he is really good. So, come on, no one has any excuses,” Saurav further said.