"My name is Dominique Lloyd-Walter. I am 20years old and a full time squash professional. I enjoyed a successful junior career which hit it's peak when I became European Junior Champion in April 2000. I am currently playing the World senior circuit which is organised by an association called WISPA. At
the moment my World ranking is 55 and I am ranked 14 in England. However, I hope to have climbed my way into the top 30 in the World by the end of 2002.To achieve this I must play, on average, ten WISPA tournaments throughout the year. Although being a professional squash player involves a lot of hard training both on court and in the gym, playing the WISPA tour compensates for this. It has enabled me to visit many parts of the World, such as America, Canada, Australia, Malaysia and most European countries. Recently, I have had a couple of good results over players ranked higher than myself. Unfortunately though, a player's personal World ranking is determined by which round they get to in a tournament and not by who they beat. Therefore, I could beat the World number one tomorrow, but as far as my ranking is concerned I could have just beaten the World number eighty.
My best result ever was when I beat Rebecca Macree (World number 12) in a National League match. As in any aspect of life, you meet many different characters on the circuit.
When you are competing in a sport as individual as squash, it is quite hard to make real fiends. However, over the years I have managed to make a couple who I know will, most probably, be friends for life. As you can imagine, playing tournaments around the World does not come cheap and this is why I feel extremely lucky to have the support of the World Class Performance programme behind me. The programme finances eight of my tournaments per year, my individual coaching and my training squads.
Without such great support, surviving as a full time squash player would
certainly prove to be extremely difficult."
Dominique Lloyd-Walter February 2002