SINGAPORE – National squash player Au Yeong Wai Yhann is eyeing another milestone after her breakthrough title on the Professional Squash Association (PSA) Challenger Tour.

The 24-year-old has set her sights on turning professional in mid-2024 after she graduates from the University of the West of England in Bristol.

The last Singaporean squash pro was Vivian Rhamanan, who won gold medals at the 2015 and 2017 SEA Games.

In September, Au Yeong became the Republic’s first women’s player to win a PSA Challenger Tour event after she came from behind to beat England’s Kiera Marshall 3-1 (7-11, 11-7, 11-7, 11-4) in the Schraglage Squash Open final.

“You can never be too satisfied – it’s still the smallest Challenger Tour event, so I have a lot more bigger goals to achieve... After I finish my studies, I want to play pro and really go on tour, focus on my squash, especially with the Olympics (in 2028) coming up, it’s an even bigger goal for me,” she said.

The PSA World Tour is the highest professional level while the Challenger Tour is for up-and-coming players, comprising seven tiers of competition with Challenger 30 being the highest, followed by 20, 15, 12, 9, 6 and 3.

The Schraglage Open in Germany is a Challenger 3 event.

The prize pools for these Challenger Tour tournaments range from US$3,000 (S$4,060) to US$30,000.

“Since I was younger, I was always dreaming of winning a tournament but, for it to actually come true, it took a while for me to process it. It was quite an amazing experience,” said Au Yeong, who is back for the Vitagen Singapore Squash Open.

On Tuesday, the world No. 84 lost 3-0 (11-5-11, 11-4, 11-5) to Malaysia’s 28th-ranked Rachel Arnold, the 2019 SEA Games champion, in the first round of the US$225,000 event at the OCBC Arena.

Singapore’s other representative, world No. 293 Marcus Phua, also exited the tournament after a 3-0 (11-5, 11-3, 11-6) loss to Canadian world No. 46 David Baillargeon.

For multiple SEA Games medallist Au Yeong, it has been a steep learning curve the past year.

The six-time national champion started playing on the PSA Challenger Tour in 2017, when she took the year off to train full-time in pursuit of her dream to play professionally, but she mainly competed in events around the region.

Au Yeong began playing more PSA Challenger Tour events internationally towards the end of 2021 and even more in 2022 with the hope of getting her rankings up.

But playing nearly 15 events in the past year, with at least one or two tournaments a month, while also having to represent her university in competitions, proved to be a tough balancing act.

She said: “To get into tournaments, you have to get your rankings up and, to get your rankings up, you have to play more tournaments.

“So I was trying to get into as many tournaments as I could, but then I realised that’s not how it works because, after a while, you have to perform even better during each tournament to sustain your rankings.

“When you first join, you think it’s just playing tournaments, just travelling, but it’s a lot more to that – good preparation leading up to the tournament and then how you play well throughout the week and also training between tournaments.”

That prompted Au Yeong to change her approach and she took a break from competing from July to mid-August to focus on training, which she felt was necessary.

During this period, she did solo work on court while going to the gym and focusing on recovery, which made her return to competition at the Schraglage Open feeling “a lot fitter and stronger”.

She said: “It was a good break mentally to recuperate but it gave me that competitiveness – I actually missed competing and that was really good.”

While juggling sport and her dissertation in her final year of university may be tough, she will be taking notes from the lessons she has learnt in the past year.

She said: “There are so many tournaments, so you have to be more strategic with what you choose. I’m still learning the process of being on tour, and what it’s like to be a professional player.”

Singapore Squash Open defending men’s champion Mohamed El Shorbagy of England will begin his title defence on Wednesday against Egypt’s Youssef Ibrahim, while Egyptian world No. 1 Ali Farag will play Canada’s Baillargeon.