Patrick Rooney has vowed to give the PSA Squash Tour "one more crack" after contemplating his future as a pro squash player at the end of last season.
The Merseysider, who reached a career-high ranking of 18 in January 2023, suffered an ankle injury a year later which sidelined him for six months.
Rooney with Gina Kennedy at the 2022 Commonwealth Games
The England international admits he has struggled for consistency and momentum ever since his return from that injury two years ago, exacerbated recently by financial issues after losing a major sponsorship and being removed from the England Squash senior programme.
"If you'd spoken to me at the end of last season, I wasn't sure if I was going to carry on," admitted the 29-year-old.
"I just hit a wall after Hamburg [the Hamburg Open in April]. The last two tournaments after that, I just wasn't up for it. I was just seeing it through until the end of the season... I was depleted mentally.
"It was becoming hard to fund playing in tournaments further afield. Losing sponsors made me think, what am I going to do now? Do I go into coaching and call it a day? There was a lot of thoughts."
There's no doubt that the breadcrumbs leading to this watershed moment can be traced back to the ankle injury of 2023.
"My comeback season was very disappointing," he admits.
"The season after, I tried to find a way back to how I played before the injury. I saw glimpses of that, I had some good results, some not so good.
"The potential is there for me to get back up to the level I was. But with a big injury comes a lot of niggles along the way. You have to mentally get yourself up for 15 or 16 tournaments throughout the season. It's not easy."
In the last few months, ample evidence has appeared all around Rooney which definitely supports his assertion that life outside the top 30 of the PSA rankings is a tough and perilous experience:
His Pontefract training partner and Yorkshire League team-mate Rory Stewart, 30, quit the PSA Tour this summer to become a golf coach.
Former world no.68 Asia Harris, another Pontefract alumnus, announced her retirement in September aged just 21.
Rooney's fellow England international, Yorkshireman Nick Wall, 26, hasn't played a PSA tournament since May amid retirement rumours.
New Zealand brothers Lwamba and Temwa Chileshe, who have been based in Yorkshire for several years, both quit pro squash earlier this year.
Against this backdrop, Rooney's persistence goes somewhat against the grain. He feels giving himself a break over the summer off has helped rekindle his motivation.
"I've had the summer off and not put any effort in at all," he said. "I felt like I needed that time off. I feel refreshed mentally and ready to go again for another season."
Early-season results have betrayed an inevitable sluggishness, however. On the Tour, he lost heavily to good friend Eain Yow Ng at the London Classic and got through a round of the Swedish Open after a Sam Osborne-Wylde retirement.
In between, he had mixed results playing for Portuguese side Galomar in the European Club Championships in Nurnberg, losing twice to upcoming Frenchman Melvil Scianimanico, but pushing him deep into a fifth game in their match in the pool stage.
"The first few results I've had this season have been below-par, to say the least," he admits. "But I've put a few weeks of training in now and I'm sure I'll get better as the season goes on."
Rooney has managed to find a new sponsor through his North West Counties team, but he still enters the new season with a caveat.
"The aim for last season was to reach the top 32 and get back in the Platinums. I didn't manage that, so I've got the same target in mind this season.
"I've said to myself if I do well this season I'll carry on, but if I don't I might call it a day. At the minute, I'm just taking it tournament by tournament."
