Netballer Yew Shu Ning back in action after ACL injury as S’pore eye Asian c’ship crown

SINGAPORE – Playing at the Asian Netball Championship in 2022 was a significant milestone for Singapore defender Yew Shu Ning, as she made her national debut in front of a home crowd at the OCBC Arena.

When the 26-year-old steps onto the court at the Koramangala Stadium in Bangalore for her second Asian championship this week, it will be another special occasion for very different reasons.

The past year leading up to the Oct 18-27 tournament in India has been a difficult one as she worked her way back from an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury that she sustained at the 2023 Netball World Cup in South Africa.

For Yew, being back in the national team feels like “a pat on the back” having persevered through a long rehabilitation process with complications along the way.

After being on the sidelines for over a year, she is excited to just be able to play netball again.

“I was so happy to even touch the ball, to even play games, work out combinations and play together (with my teammates) even if it was for one or two minutes,” said the cyber-security analyst, who picked up the sport in secondary school.

She tore the ACL in her right knee in August 2023 when Singapore defeated Asian champions Sri Lanka 49-46 in the 15th-place play-off at the World Cup.

While trying to tip the ball, Yew, who was playing in wing defence, attempted to leap out of the court to avoid landing in the final third and being called for offside.

She immediately felt a sharp pain in her knee when she landed, but did not think that it was serious at first because she did not hear a popping sound. Despite the initial pain, her knee felt fine and she was still able to walk.

But a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan confirmed the worst – Yew had torn her ACL. She cried upon hearing the news and, after some contemplation, eventually underwent surgery in late September 2023.

It was unlike anything she had been through before. In 2019, she tore the posterior cruciate ligament in her left knee, but that kept her out of action for only one month as she did not have to go under the knife.

The first few months of her post-surgery recovery went well. By the third or fourth month, she was already trying to run and jump, and a month or two later she was doing agility work with former national coach Annette Bishop and teammate Sindhu Nair, who was also recovering from an ACL injury.

In April, Yew was back on court without contact as she aimed to return to competitive action at the Nations Cup in early September.

But issues began cropping up as she experienced random swelling in her ankle and knee, which doctors said was a result of overloading her knee.

She said: “It was tough because I wanted to rush back in nine months and I thought I was ready but everything started happening.

“Then I started to think, ‘Is this right for me to come back in nine months? Or am I ready?’ I was struggling quite a bit at that point in time.”

While it was frustrating for Yew, it was also an important reminder not to rush the recovery process.

Crediting her teammates for their support, she added: “All along I told myself I could do this, I’ve put in so much hard work and I was doing my rehabilitation every day. But after that, I realised that rest is part of my recovery.”

Interim coach Yeo Mee Hong was pleased to have Yew back in the squad as world No. 24 Singapore eye the Asian crown that they last won in 2014.

Since then, Malaysia have won once, with Sri Lanka winning the last two editions by beating Singapore in the final both times.

Although there have been no significant changes to the squad since the Nations Cup, where Singapore finished runners-up, one area they have been working on is maintaining their consistency.

The Republic will open their Pool B campaign against unranked sides Iraq (Oct 18) and Bahrain (Oct 20), before taking on world No. 42 Brunei (Oct 21), unranked Thailand (Oct 22) and 39th-ranked Hong Kong (Oct 23).

Yeo said: “In terms of consistency, we are talking about feeding the shooters and transition play... We hope that we can focus on our consistency and minimise our own errors.

“Hopefully we can finish well, especially when we play different countries with different styles of play.”