Pre–2000: Junior years David played squash when she was five years old, and received coaching at the age of eight. who led her to represent her home state of
Penang, along with her sisters. Her first national level victory was also in 1992 at the
Milo-
Dunlop Sport National Junior Interstate Championship, where she won silver in the Under-16 category. In the same year, she won her first two international titles – the Hong Kong U-13 and the
Scottish Junior Open Under-12. In 1999, David began to win major junior tournaments, including the British Junior Open (Under-17 champion), David also is one of a few squash player to have won all the age categories in the British Junior Open.
2000–2004: Early professional career during the 2007 CIMB Malaysian Open. David joined
WISPA and turned professional in 2000 when she won her first WISPA title, after only a month in the tour. Within a month, Hotel Equatorial announced its two-year worldwide sponsorship for her. David also won a sponsorship on the WISPA tour by Dunlop squash. In July, David won the World Junior title for a second time, beating
Omneya Abdel Kawy in just 17 minutes with a score of 9–2, 9–4 and 9–2 in the final. She remained the only female squash player to have achieved this until 2007, when
Raneem El Weleily won her second World Junior Championship. David also won the individual event in the Asian Junior Squash Championships by defeating her compatriot
Tricia Chuah in the final with a score of 9–5, 9–6 and 9–0; and helped the Malaysian team to the team event title. In 2002 David, together with her mixed double event partner
Ong Beng Hee, won a
Commonwealth Games silver medal for
Malaysia after losing to
Glen Wilson and
Leilani Rorani in the final. Earlier in the year, David defeated Ellen Petersen of Denmark with a score of 9–2, 9–7, 8–10, 9–4 to win the second
Kuala Lumpur Open title of her career. David failed to retain her
Asian Games gold medal in 2002, when she was beaten 9–7, 9–5 and 9–7 by
Rebecca Chiu of Hong Kong in the final in
Busan, South Korea. David was the losing finalist twice in 2003, losing to the more experienced
Cassie Jackman on her home ground and then to
Linda Elriani in the Monte Carlo Classic in November. She reached the semi-final of the World Open in Hong Kong, where she was again beaten by Jackman with a score of 9–6, 9–3, 9–4. David did not perform well in the other major WISPA events; she was eliminated in the first round of the Carol Weymuller US Open, in the British Open and in the Texas Open. In the
Qatar Classic Open, David lost in the second round to
Natalie Grinham with a score of 9–2, 7–9, 9–0 and 9–4. In 2004 David again failed to win any title. Her achievements included getting into the final of both the
Kuala Lumpur Open and the semi-finals of the World Open, to rise two places to number four in the January 2005 WISPA rankings.
2005–2006: World champion and rise to the top Defeated only twice in 2005, the 21-year-old from Penang returned to her home country in July after winning the gold medal at the World Games in Germany. she then became the first local player to win the Women's CIMB
Malaysian Open Squash Championship title in the event's 31-year history. In October, David proved that her success in the World Games and in the
Malaysian Open was not by chance by becoming the first Malaysian to win a
British Open title, the first Asian to win the women's crown, when she beat Australia's
Natalie Grinham in the women's final in straight games that lasted in 55 minutes. Within two months after the British Open and the World Games win, David won the World Open in Hong Kong for the first time and world number one ranking for the first time in January 2006. Later in the year, she was voted by her fellow members of the
Women's International Squash Players Association as the WISPA Player of The Year 2005. David became the World's number 1 female squash player in January 2006 at the age of 23 to become the first Malaysian and the first Asian woman to be ranked World number 1 in the sport. She also became the twelfth holder of the position since the rankings were first produced in April 1983. David started to show progress later in the year and recovered from the setback to win six straight tour titles and reclaimed the World number 1 spot. David successfully defended her World Open title on 25 November 2006, at the
Ulster Hall in
Belfast by defeating Natalie Grinham in the final that was said to be "one of the great finals of the Women’s World Open". She became the first Malaysian athlete to win a world championship title for the second consecutive time, and the fourth person in history to retain the World Open Squash Championship. the Dunlop British Open Championship, the
Hong Kong Open, the Penang Open and the CIMB
Malaysian Open. David topped the December WISPA ranking with a points average of almost twice that of her nearest rival,
Rachael Grinham, and in the same month, in the second annual
WISPA Awards, she was voted best female player of the year for the second time.
2007–2008: Winning streak and dominance at the 2007 CIMB Open at National Squash Complex,
Bukit Jalil,
Selangor. David captured another six titles in the early months of 2007, then lost the final of the British Open to Australian
Rachael Grinham in a five set final lasting 87 minutes. A month later, David again failed to defend her
World Open title when she stumbled in the second round, losing to
Shelley Kitchen with a score of 0–9, 1–9, 9–2, 9–3 and 6–9 in 69 minutes. It was the first time since April 2004 that David did not qualify for the quarters of a tournament, losing to the same person who denied her the bronze medal of the
Commonwealth Games in Melbourne 9 months previously. In December, David won the inaugural
Asian Sportswoman of the Year, beating more than 100 competitors who represented 25 sporting bodies. In 2008, David won ten tour titles and was unbeaten. David completed her most successful year to date, retaining her
Cathay Pacific Hong Kong Open title David celebrated her second full calendar year as world number one in the December Women's World Squash Rankings thus bringing her reign at the top of women's squash to 30 straight months. David's WISPA title successes in 2008 began with the Apawamis Open in New York in February, and then lead Malaysia to the bronze medal in the Women's World Team Championship in
Cairo.
2009–present: Achieving records . With a lead over her nearest rival, she led in the Women's World Squash Rankings published on 1 January 2009 by the Women's International Squash Players' Association (WISPA) – thus moving into her 30th successive month as the world's number one female player. David headed an unchanged top four, with
Natalie Grinham (Netherlands) at No. 2; her older sister
Rachael Grinham (Australia) at No. 3; and
Natalie Grainger, of the United States, at No. 4. After the defeat, David recovered to capture the inaugural Cayman Islands Open. She managed to avenge her loss to Grainger early in the year by beating her 11–8, 11–6 and 11–5 in the final. It is her 35th tour crown and her 50th appearance in a WISPA Tour final. A week later, David went on to win her second title of the year by again dispatching Grainger, this time in four sets. A week later, on 1 August, David picked up her fifth consecutive
Malaysian Open title, winning 11–6, 11–8, 9–11, 11–7 in a 60-minute match against 25-year-old Londoner,
Alison Waters. David thus became the first player to win five Malaysian Open titles in a row since its inception in 1975. Dominating on the squash courts, David beat Natalie Grinham to win her third consecutive Singapore Masters championship, and her third title within a month. On 12 September, David lost to
Madeline Perry in the
British Open quarter-final in a five set match that lasted for 76 minutes; 15 days later, she recovered to defeat arch-rival Natalie Grinham in the final of the
World Open Championship, obtaining the title for a record fourth time. David started 2010 ranked number 1 for the 42nd consecutive month. She appeared in the
WISPA calendar for the month of January. David competed in her first tournament in March, the US$53,000 Chennai Open; she won all her matches in straight sets and was crowned as the champion, avenging two straight defeats to Jenny Duncalf in late 2009. Thirteen days later, in the
Kuala Lumpur Open, David defeated the fourth seeded Egyptian
Omneya Abdel Kawy who upset second seed Jenny Duncalf in the semi-finals in straight sets to win her second successive WISPA title of the year. It was David's sixth title in the
Kuala Lumpur Open tournament as she had previously won it in 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 and 2008. David had won five more tour titles since April. This include winning the
World Open title on 22 September. In October, in the women's singles final of the
2010 Commonwealth Games in
Delhi, David defeated
Jenny Duncalf 11–3, 11–5, 11–7 in 40 minutes to win the gold medal. David did not drop a game in the entire tournament, just as she did in the
2010 World Open in Egypt. David became the first player to win the US Open for the third straight year.
Rivalry between David and Natalie Grinham David and
Natalie Grinham have a long rivalry history. As of March 2012, they have met 36 times, with David leading their overall head-to-head series 29–7. and 16 of their matches have been in tournament finals, including two in the
World Open tournament. On 27 September 2009 in the $118,000 == Career statistics ==