Squash: Ivan not in the mood to retire

By Kng Zheng Guan - July 20, 2020 @ 9:15am

IT would have been easy for national No 2 Ivan Yuen to call it a day and hang up his squash racquet now.

The three-time national champion is not getting any younger as he turns 30 in September with the future of the sport still facing uncertainty due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Several top professionals from Ivan's generation, most notably Egyptian former women's world champion Raneem El Welily and Hong Kong's Leo Au have retired recently.

But Ivan has no plans to call it a day yet.

He feels there is still fire in his belly as he aims to keep going, possibly until the 2022 Asian Games.

"I think the motivation for myself is my own drive on how much more I can push myself," admitted Ivan, who was part of the 2018 Asian Games gold medal-winning team.

"The plan is to keep going until the next Asian Games but at the end of the day it comes down to how much my body can take it.

"It's a bit hard to predict what can happen in sports but so far, touch wood, I've not really suffered a major injury.

"I am happy that I can still go on, although my recovery time is a lot slower compared to the others as I am not that young."

Ivan admitted that the post-Movement Control Order (MCO) period has been challenging in his bid to get back into shape.

"We've been back in training for a month, but I feel that I'm still not in the best shape," said Ivan.

"I think part of it is because I've been taking it slowly, instead of pushing too hard and bearing the risk of getting injured considering that the Professional Squash Association (PSA) Tour is unlikely to resume this year.

"I have to work on changing my game style as I'm not as fast and explosive as before but it's a lot harder since the MCO kicked in.

"Now I'm mainly focusing on regaining my fitness and rhythm first before working on my game style."

Ivan immediate goal is the Ohana National Championships on Oct 6-10.

"That will be our first major tournament in a while. It is important to start playing matches because we can only get better once we start playing more," Ivan added.

Ivan will be aiming for his fourth straight national title, a feat, no Malaysian man has ever achieved since the inception of the tournament in 1973.