Courting Your Obsession: A Squash Odyssey

SQUASH ACTION: Nick Matthew (white shirt) of England and Gregory Gaultier (orange shirt) of France do battle on the squash court in their semi-final match at the ISS Canary Wharf Squash Classic, London, England on March 24, 2011. (Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images)

All you have to do is make the ball bounce twice.

You’re in this bizarre room with red lines painted horizontally and diagonally on the walls and floors. In one hand you hold your novice model $100 squash stick that looks like a tennis racquet on a Jenny Craig diet. In your other hand you hold a tiny rubber ball that looks like it was made from the tires off your old Taurus.

You’ve played hockey, soccer and baseball and your buddies insist that you’d make an awesome squash player. You’ve taken your two introductory lessons and a month’s worth of beginner clinics, and the club pro has somehow charmed you into the idea of playing house league on Wednesday nights.

Your serve has been dead on, the ball dropping into the corner over your opponent’s head and scoring you points whenever you please. When he does get your serve back you’re moving right up in the court to tap the ball to the open side before he can recover back to the precious T position in the middle of the court. 11–7 for you, and you win the match 3–1. You’re unstoppable. You’ve taken the beginner house-league title. You love squash!

You change into your second t-shirt of the match and chug down the last of your water. You’re down 2–1. It’s finals night but you’re playing for seventh place in your division. You’ve lost your last two matches and after dominating the T and making all of your drop shots in the first game, you’ve been winded and can’t stay as patient as you want to be.

Markus, your opponent, has stopped making errors and you’re not getting any free points. Work and family have been getting in the way. You’re not playing as much as you want to. You’re not as fit as you want to be. You’re stuck on Wednesdays. You want to be playing in the Monday advanced house league. You need to take lessons again. You need to enjoy the game again.

Simon, the captain of the Men’s C team has asked you to sub in for the squad on Thursday. You were dominating at Men’s D and you went undefeated at Level 4 on Monday nights. All that biking you did over the summer is paying dividends.

The lessons working on your straight length and pinning your opponent behind you rather than just trying to win the points quickly and cheaply are taking shape in your matches. You’re structuring your points now and identifying your opponents’ weaknesses. People are saying you’re a smart player with a solid understanding of the game.

You’re only getting better. You feel incredible after matches. You analyze them. Your shots can be tighter. You can volley more. More pressure on your opponent. More variety in your game. You are obsessed.

It’s 12–11 in the fourth game and you’re up 2–1. The match is well into its second hour and you’re on your last tank of gas. It’s the provincial B finals and you have Steve Steadfast at match point after losing to him three times this season.

After cracking the serve straight at his body you cheat over to the right wall, knowing that he’s going to play a tentative straight length. You hit a crisp crosscourt volley that catches the sidewall just behind the service box and nearly dies in the back corner. He barely gets a defensive boast back that you jump all over and hit straight down the wall. He gets the frame of his racquet on the ball and it spins high in the air and just hangs for you in the middle of the court.

After six years grinding through your new obsession and spending thousands of hours whacking a little rubber ball around a 32 by 21 foot court you’re about to make a name for yourself.

Clank! There it is. The most gut wrenching sound to any squash player who has ever set foot inside the battle grounds. The tin. The area just below the wall that has lost you so many points over these six agonizing seasons. You lose the game 14–12 and then the next one 11–3. You sit drenched in a corner, behind court five, all by yourself wondering how you managed to let the biggest match of your life slip away.

You take the summer off squash. You play tennis and golf instead. However, neither sport gives you the kind of physical pummeling that squash does and your six pack turns into your neighbor’s gut. BBQ and beers on the patio have made you soft and memories of 75 minute wars on the glass back courts seem fraudulent.

City league starts again next week so you’re forced to come out with the team just to knock a few balls around and see how it feels. It’s been three months since you even stepped on court. You can’t hit the ball straight. You can’t move forward to cover the attack. You can’t lunge into the back corners to receive basic length and recover to the T.

You can’t anticipate your opponent’s shots enough to volley anything and so you’re forced to do twice the running that they’re doing. However, you’re in such poor physical shape that halfway through each game you have to go for outrageous winners just to end the point either way.

You go home depressed. You lost to do Bobby, James and even Strachan who had never even won a game off you, let alone a match. You need to get back in the gym. You need to get back on the bike. You need to get back in for lessons.

This is your season. It’s time to finally make the jump to A. You’re going to train five times a week instead of four. Two sessions a week at 7 a.m. before work. Long distance runs on the weekend after your son Billy’s soccer games. More drills and less playing. Getting back to basics on the court. More length. More straight. More efficient movement. More simple.

All you have to do is make the ball bounce twice.