She performed solidly in several successive $25k tournaments over the Spring, reaching the semifinal at Campobasso, Italy in May with an impressive win over emerging Slovak star Jarmila Gajdošová (before losing to Mariya Koryttseva of Ukraine in three sets), and defeating Gajdosova in three once more, as well as the equally promising youngster Kaia Kanepi of Estonia, and the experienced Australian Christina Wheeler, in reaching the final at Grado in June.

In August, she nearly qualified for the $50k Bronx Open after a fine three-set victory over Tatiana Poutchek, but lost in the deciding set in an extremely close qualifying-round match against German Angelika Bachmann.

2006 began well with the much-improved Chinese rising star qualifying for Gold Coast with wins over Cara Black, Kaia Kanepi (again) and Casey Dellacqua.

Not one for being easily discouraged, she proceeded to come through qualifying for her fourth WTA Tour main draw and her first at Grand Slam level, the Australian Open, with straight-sets wins over Yulia Beygelzimer of Ukraine, Elena Baltacha of Great Britain and Bethanie Mattek of the United States.

After a couple of disappointing qualifying losses in early February, to Vania King at Tokyo and Akgul Amanmuradova at Pattaya, Yuan next broke through in Memphis, defeating Christina Wheeler once more to gain the main draw, where she battled past talented Uzbekistan player Varvara Lepchenko in three sets before succumbing to the solid American Jill Craybas in round two.

Even if she does not win her third-round tie, the estimated 39 ranking points accrued from her performance so far will give her a very strong chance of edging just inside the world top 100 for the first time in her career in the week following the tournament.

She defeated Casey Dellacqua of Australia in Cincinnati, eighth-seeded Russian Yaroslava Shvedova in Bali, Marina Erakovic of New Zealand in Seoul, and fourth-seeded Japanese Ai Sugiyama in Tokyo.

In July, Yuan won three matches to reach the quarterfinals of the East West Bank Classic in Carson, California where she lost to wildcard Bethanie Mattek of the U.S., 2–6, 5–7.

Later that month, as a qualifier at the Rogers Cup in Montreal, she had to quit in the first round against ninth seed Patty Schnyder because of a left thigh injury, 7–6, 3–2 (ret.).