The now-retired Malaysian squash player Nicol David has dominated the sport in the early 21st century, with eight World Open Squash Championship wins.
Born in 1983, her interest in squash started at the tender age of 5. In 1997, she reached the quarterfinals of the World Junior Squash Championships, and two years later, at the age of 15, she became the youngest woman to win. Shortly after, she became the first woman to grab the Junior Championship title twice.
And this was only the beginning of her winning career. She ranked number one in the world for women’s squash and ran an unprecedented nine-year reign between 2006 and 2015. She has under her belt eight World Championships, five British Open titles, two Commonwealth Games gold medals, seven Asian Games titles, and altogether 81 professional titles.
In 2019, she retired from competitive play. Since then, she has been dedicated towards launching the Nicol David Foundation, whose aim is to render sports more accessible to children, empower girls, increase their participation, and provide English education to non-native English speakers.
In the light of her career, she is without a doubt one of the greatest squash players to ever pick up a racket. And now, in collaboration with a Malaysian digital media and film production investment company, her journey will be shared in the movie “I am Nicol David”. As a role model, she once said “I hope I can inspire the young to dream big. If I can do it, you can aspire to do that too. If you have the passion to do something great and feel it’s right for you deep down, give yourself a chance to try. If the opportunity is there, take it. Don’t sell yourself short.”
One has to say that she certainly is an inspiration! While she was never given the chance during her career to shine on an Olympic stage, she was recently crowned as the “World Games Greatest Athlete of All Time”. These World Games, taking place every four years, feature athletes and disciplines that are not represented at the Olympics.