“My father taught me that if you set out to do something, you must do it with complete dedication, or not at all,” says Abhinav Sinha (35), his voice calm yet unflinching. “In sport, you cannot do things half-heartedly. If you choose the path, you walk it with absolute intent.”

Prayagraj, his hometown, mirrors that belief in many ways. The city sits at the confluence of the Ganga and Yamuna, shaped by centuries of faith and routine. Ancient ghats (riverfront steps), narrow lanes, and the steady rhythm of life by the river framed Abhinav’s childhood.

Born into a family of lawyers, discipline and expectation were part of daily life. The assumption was clear. Education, stability, and a respected profession would define his future. Sport, especially squash, did not feature in that plan. There were no squash academies in the city and no formal coaching pathways.

Fast-forward to today, and Abhinav has trained over 300 athletes, supported multiple national champions, and built a pipeline of talent emerging from tier-2 towns across India.

Through Chance2Sports Foundation, which he co-leads with Chetan Desai, and SportsSkill, a tech-enabled platform created to support the foundation’s athletes, Abhinav is widening access to a sport long seen as exclusive. Hunger, discipline, and consistency matter more here than privilege or postcode.

The partnership between Abhinav and Chetan grew out of shared frustration with the Indian sports ecosystem.

“Chetan and I came together because we were both experiencing the same problem from opposite ends,” Abhinav says. “I was coaching athletes and trying to track progress through Excel sheets, while international academies were recording and analysing every session in detail. I knew we were missing critical information.”

Abhinav began thinking about sport differently. “Sports demand structured thinking, constant learning, and adaptation,” he says. That mindset led to systems that could scale.

Chetan, a co-founder of SportsSkill, brings 50 years of experience in tennis, as well as operational expertise across sports management, FMCG, and media. Together, they built SportsSkill as a platform to track, record, and guide athletes selected under Chance2Sports.

SportsSkill is free for all athletes supported by the foundation. It is used to log training, upload match videos, track progress, and share personalised feedback. It was built not as a standalone product, but as a tool to strengthen the mentoring ecosystem under Chance2Sports.

Abhinav’s father passed away while he was still in school, leaving a void that shaped his early years. Sport became the one constant holding his life together. Noticing this, his........

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