Ong Beng Hee

Ong Beng Hee (born 4 February 1980, in Penang, Malaysia) is a professional squash player from Malaysia.
With four successive Asian Championship titles from 2000–2006; gold medals in both the 2002 and 2006 Asian Games, 11 PSA Tour titles from 19 final appearances, and a career-best world ranking of No 7, Ong Beng Hee has become Malaysia’s most successful men squash player of all-time. In August 1998, the Penang teenager crowned a glittering junior career in the USA by becoming the World Junior Champion – an achievement that made him the first non-Pakistani Asian to claim the most prestigious junior title.
He began the new millennium outside the top 40. By the end of the year he had won his first Asian Championship; had become the first Malaysian to qualify for the British Open, then went on to make the quarter-finals. He had also secured three PSA titles. The third of these was in Kuala Lumpur where he became the first home winner of the prestigious Malaysian Open. His sparkling year was rewarded by a leap into the top ten, and a career-best world number 7 ranking in December 2001.^[1][2]

Biography

 

1994 - 1997

Ong Beng Hee began playing squash when he was eight – at the 17-court club his squash-enthusiast father had built in Malaysia. He first came to international attention in January 1994 when he won the prestigious British Junior Under-14 Open title in England. A year later he reached the final of the Under-16 British Open, going one better in January 1996 by winning the Under-16 title. Later that year, he showed his promise by reaching the semi-finals of the 1996 World Junior Open in Egypt, competing as a 16-year-old in an event in which most fellow competitors were at least two years older.Coached initially by his father, then the Canadian Malaysian national coach Jamie Hickox, Beng Hee moved to England in 1997 to work with Neil Harvey, coach to England's long-time world No 1 Peter Nicol - later moving north to work with Malcolm Willstrop.^{[citation needed]}

1998 - 2001

In January 1998, he became the British Junior Under-19 Open champion, at the age of 17, and joined a select and distinguished group of squash players who have claimed three British Junior Open titles. In August, Beng Hee clinched the World Junior Open title in his second successive final, beating Egypt’s Wael El Hindi in the final in Princeton, New Jersey, USA. In 2001, Beng Hee reached the quarter-finals of five Super Series events - an achievement which was rewarded the following year by his debut in the Super Series Finals in London.^{[citation needed]}

2003 - 2007

In 2003, Beng Hee made up for the disappointment of a third round exit in the men’s singles of the Commonwealth Games in England by winning the silver medal in the Mixed Doubles with illustrious compatriot Nicol David. 2007 highlights include beating higher-ranked Stewart Boswell to reach the quarter-finals of the British Open in Manchester - then, later in the year, repeating his success over the Australian in the Qatar Classic before achieving a second upset over Egyptian Wael El Hindi to become the only unseeded player to reach the last eight of the Super Series event in Doha.^{[citation needed]}

Recent years

Beng Hee consolidated his presence in the middle of the top 20 in 2008 with an appearance in the final of the Kolkata International in India in February. But the biggest boost to his confidence came in his home country in March when he reached the final of the KL Open for the third time - but this time beat his new national rival Mohd Azlan Iskandar 11–8, 15–13, 12–10 to win the title for the first time, while also avenging the defeat by his compatriot in the 2006 final. The win also endorsed his rise above Iskandar in the PSA rankings - but later took Beng Hee back into the world top ten for the first time since December 2003.^{[citation needed]}