MEN'S national No 2 Ivan Yuen has challenged the up-and-coming players in the country to step up and beat him in tournaments.
In the absence of national No 1 Ng Eain Yow, who is based in Bristol, the world No 52 is still the unrivalled player on home soil.
That nearly changed as Ivan was taken the full distance, first against Ong Sai Hung and then Darren Rahul Pragasam, before prevailing in five-setters en route to winning the SRAM PSA 5 earlier this month.
The 31-year-old believes there is no reason why the younger players shouldn't be beating him at this point.
The four-time national champion hopes to see more challenges come his way when the SRAM PSA 6 gets underway from Oct 27-30.
"The younger boys have been pushing me really hard in matches, and I like it that way," said Ivan. It is good for Malaysia to have these young players challenging me rather than me beating them easily.
"It is a positive sign, and I surely hope to see more of it. At my age, they should be starting to beat me already.
"But we have a lot more tournaments coming up, and I believe the boys are keener and motivated, so I definitely hope that they keep this up going forward."
Meanwhile, Ivan said he is in good shape despite returning from the United States with an injury in August.
"I came back from the US injured, but it has been good so far as I've put in some work into strengthening. I am now in better shape," said Ivan.
For the SRAM PSA 6 meet, top seed Ivan is drawn to face Darren or Sai Hung in the semi-finals.
National No 3 Syafiq Kamal and Addeen Idrakie, who returned from the US stints earlier this month, are seeded second and third, respectively, and are in the bottom half of the draw.
In the women's event, national No 4 Aifa Azman is the favourite to continue her winning streak as she targets a 10th PSA title.