The Squash Racquets Federation of India or SRFI is the Indian governmental apex body for the game of squash. It conducts the National Squash Championship, and promotes the game through the different state level squash bodies, and provides training facilities and selects the squad for the Indian team. It also chooses coaches for the national team (presently Cyrus Poncha and Major S. The rise of squ
ash worldwide with many players in the top 100 worldwide and India's higher rankings worldwide are a testament to the hard work put in by the administrators and players over the last decade. Among the major facilities created by the SRFI is the ICL-TNSRA squash academy,[1] which hosted the World Team Championship in 2007.[2]
In 2000, the squash association of Maharashtra felt that the chairman of the SRFI, N. Ramchandran, was hindering the chances of players.[3] Conflict between the SRFI and squash athletes came to a fore in 2005, when the government was conferring the Dronacharya award on SRFI affiliated squash coach Cyrus Poncha. India's number one squash player Joshna Chinappa wrote a letter to the Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs that she never trained under Poncha, and that he had misused her name to get the Dronacharya award.[4] The SRFI chairman Ramachandran then produced testimonials from Joshna where she acknowledges the support of SRFI and Poncha. In 2008, the SRFI chose a woman's squad for the Asian championships without Dipika Pallikal, who was then training in Egypt, after having recently won the under-17 British Open. The federation cited irregularities in the paperwork in informing the group about her absence due to training,[5] but it was felt that this might have been a rivalry with the Mittal Champions Trust which had been sponsoring her training abroad. The SRFI maintains the website indiasquash.com,[6] which announces the national squash calendar and other details.
