A Simple Game. A Simple Plan

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Doubles squash in all of it’s complexity is a simple game - hit the ball into the area of the court that is not being defended.

Picture the court as having four quadrants - left forecourt, right forecourt, left backcourt, right backcourt.  In order for a team to defend the court effectively, both players of the team must position themselves in the mid-court - which is more or less at the red service line. To achieve this, the team must move synchronous with one another.


The knack to winning points is to disrupt this basic defense by moving the opposing team off from the mid-court thus creating openings in the court for your team to exploit.

During play, take note of where your opponents are positioned relative to the service line in order to determine if one or both of your opponent's intention is to cover the front or back court. 

If one of your opponents is moving forward in front of the service line thus creating an opening behind him/her - hit deep. If he/she is moving back to behind the service line thereby creating an opening in front of him/her - hit short. 

If the opposition is not moving and is not concerned about having to leave the mid-court, it means that the ball is being hit TO them thus allowing them to STAY in the mid-court thereby controlling the rally. US BAD!

What a team needs to keep in mind in order to move their opponents to the back court is to hit AROUND THEM, ABOVE THEM, but NEVER TO THEM.  

If your shot arsenal is complete, you can hit the ball into any of the four quadrants of the court from ANY area of the court (a topic for another post). If you have a full quiver of shots, you can then consider yourself to be a complete player........and also be a sought-after cog to form a well-oiled squash machine. 

If one player during the course of a rally sets up the finishing shot for his/her partner to put away, it's a telling signifier to the other pair on the court that they are playing against a good tandem that understands how to play doubles as a team. 

Many questions remain. One question is how much do you want to win?

to be continued......

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