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All About Squash

I have realized that some of the readers of this blog might not be familiar with squash - thanks for the reminder, April-Anne!

I started playing racquetball in high school and continued through college and my first year of grad school. I always wondered why there were these funky-looking courts next to mine; they were a little smaller, had different lines on the floor, had a metal strip along the base of the front wall, and had a line drawn up on the walls (high on the front, low on the back, and sloping on the sides). I never saw anybody using the courts until I hit grad school, when I realized they were for squash.

My second year at Maryland, I met my friend Craig. Craig’s Canadian, which is important to the story - see, squash is apparently much more popular outside of the States than it is within them. He got a couple of us together for a friendly set of games, and I was hooked.

The major differences between squash and racquetball stem from the balls used. A racquetball is an extremely live object; it bounces like there’s no tomorrow. A squash ball, on the other hand, is dead. Dropped from the same height, a squash ball will bounce maybe a quarter the height that the raquetball does (note: this is an unsupported claim, but you get the idea). That’s why squash courts are smaller - the ball dies so quickly you just wouldn’t be able to get to it in a big space. Similarly, the strip of metal - you’re not allowed to hit it (it makes a big clang!, because if you hit the squash ball that low it’d be impossible to return. Squash racquets are a little longer than raquetball racquets (you need the reach to get to those dying balls). I’m still not sure how the high-lines (the walls above the lines are out-of-bounds, just like the metal) help the play, but it rules out ceiling shots and several other defensive plays that are common in racquetball.

The thing that first hooked me, though, was the workout. At the level I played, I got a much better workout playing squash than I did playing racquetball - with the latter, the ball was so live that if you stood in one place long enough, the ball would come to you and still be playable. With squash, I had to chase it down every time.

After a while, other elements became more important to me - the range of strategies I use and the feeling of control I get when I play squash are totally different than what I saw when I played racquetball. Part of it may just be that I’m better at squash than I was at racquetball - but regardless, it’s a good sport.