KUALA LUMPUR: With the darkest days of her career now behind her, national squash player S. Sivasangari is relieved to be back on court again.
The 24-year-old was out of the sport for more than six months following a car accident in June last year.
It happened just when Sivasangari was ranked a career high world No 16, and headed for greater things.
Several months of inaction has affected her ranking as she slipped down to No 34 in the world.
Fortunately, Sivasangari, who is due to graduate from Cornell University this month, has shown promising signs of getting back to her best.
The Kedahan made a fine run to the semi-finals of the Kinetic Challenger in Florida last month, before losing to world No 17 Farida Mohamed.
She now feels boosted for the World Championships which start in Chicago today.
"Firstly, I'm really grateful to be back on court again and competing at a high level," said Sivasangari.
"I wouldn't say I'm at a 100 per cent yet but I'm just really happy to be doing what I love again.
"It has no doubt been a challenging couple of months after my injury, but I am allowing myself to trust the process more, and time will heal everything.
"I think what was toughest for me was the mental aspect as I had the fear of not being able to play competitive squash again.
"Seeing everyone on tour training and competing was also a tough pill to swallow, but it also gave me the motivation to complete my comeback.
"I believe a lot of the girls have improved while I was sidelined, and I know I am playing catch up right now.
"I've been playing a couple of tournaments leading up to the world meet. There have been ups and downs especially after such a long break.
"But I've been working hard with coach (David) Palmer here in Cornell, both physically and mentally."
Sivasangari will face a tricky opponent in the first round against American youngster Marina Stefanoni. A win will see her likely meeting eighth seed Rowan Elaraby of Egypt next.
Sivasangari also said it is nice to see more Malaysians making their debuts at the world meet.
Aira Azman, Noor Ainaa Amani Ampandi and Yasshmita Jadishkumar earned their spots after coming through the World Championships qualifiers last month.
Malaysian will now have a total of eight players, the others being Ng Eain Yow, Ivan Yuen (men), Rachel Arnold and Aifa Azman, making it the largest Malaysian representation at the world meet in history.
"It shows that we have a lot of talented and strong young players in Malaysia, and that is very much a good thing for the Squash Racquets Association of Malaysia," said Sivasangari.
