KUALA LUMPUR: Having fully recovered from a knee injury caused by a traffic accident, Nafiizwan Adnan will return to action at the Hong Kong Open World Series tournament this weekend.
The National No 1 missed the Malaysian Open and the Qatar Classic last month after being knocked off his motorcycle in a collision with a taxi.
However, Nafiizwan has declared himself fully fit to resume playing ahead of the start of the qualifying rounds for the Hong Kong Open on Sunday.
“I have been training hard over the last two weeks and there has been no reaction to the injury,” said Nafiizwan, 31, as he prepared to leave Kuala Lumpur on Thursday.
“I have fully recovered and I’m not worried about my fitness levels. I’m confident of a having a good tournament.”
World No 31 Nafiizwan will be among the eight seeded players in the qualifying rounds as he bids to reach the main draw, where he could face Egyptians Mohamed El Shorbagy or Omar Mosaad, among others.
“I hope to do better than last year when I lost in the first round (to Egypt’s Mazen Hesham),” said Nafiizwan, whose best achievement on the PSA Tour this year was reaching the semi-finals of the Wimbledon Club Open and HKFC International.
“I have to start in the qualifying rounds but we’ll see how it goes from there.”
Also included in the qualifying draws are national men’s champion Ivan Yuen and Rachel Arnold, the 2017 Sea Games women’s individual silver medallist.
Eight-time world champion Nicol David is the only Malaysian in either the men’s or women’s main draws and the fifth seed plays a qualifier in the opening round.
Ivan is coming off a first round exit to a qualifier at the CCI International in Mumbai on Tuesday, his third successive loss on the PSA Tour which includes a pair of defeats to national teammate Ng Eain Yow.
Rachel has not played since a surprise quarter-final loss at the Malaysian Open last month with her defeat to Japan’s Satomi Watanabe among several to lower-ranked players since August.
keywords: squash, Nafiizwan Adnan, Hong Kong Open