Photo Credit: Ma Patapoff

Laurens Anjema lunges to retrieve a dropshot during the NetSuite tournament at Stanford University.

At 175 mph squash trails close behind Jai Alai as one of the world’s fastest ball sports. Squash is a two player indoor sport played with four walls, a golf-sized ball and a 27-inch racquet, much like racquetball. However, according to US Squash, “Compared to racquetball…the better players become, the longer the rallies are, the game becomes more strategic, and more challenging,” though this is likely a biased judgment. In any case squash is remarkable for its unique mixture of strategy, technique and fitness.

A Forbes sports ranking rated squash the healthiest sport in the world. At the recent NetSuite Pro Open a few squash professionals offered me insight on squash: preparation, the match and outside life. Saurav Ghosal (world rank 26, of India) said that squash, unlike other sports, depends on the “mental part,” without which training is useless.

Ryan Cuskelly (rank 41, Australia) agreed with Ghosal, saying, “The hardest part is mentally getting [my] swing right.” Squash is also a game of adapting to your opponent: Daryl Selby (rank 12, England) and Omar Mosaad (rank 14, Egypt) mentioned, “think[ing] about what I can do to win” or in Mosaad’s words, “think about the tactics you want to use,” the day before.

Each pro stressed that preparation extends beyond the strategic or mental aspect, as Selby and Cuskelly mentioned, “load up on carbs the day before,” and “get plenty of sleep and water.”

As Ghosal, Selby, and Mosaad illustrate, interest in squash spans many continents and cultures. Moreover, each nation or region has a unique style: as Cuskelly put it, “Egyptians tend to go for shots whereas [the] English end up with longer rallies.”

In response to prompting about their values in squash, the pros presented different personal perspectives. Cuskelly stressed “enjoying the game,” whereas Selby focused on “respect for each other and the ref.”

Differences extended to off-court practice, on which each pro had his own theory: Ghosal played down cross training and Cuskelly brought up golf and surfing as downtime activities. On the other hand Selby encouraged “running or anything else in the gym.”

In my own experience squash is also a mental game, but the mental aspect is stress. No US history tests means an “on-day.” Nevertheless, base fitness is the ultimate factor in determining squash performance.

Squash is also attractive for its variety: just as the Egyptian style works as well as the British, at the club level squash allows for many different backgrounds and focuses. Where every racquetball player must focus on technique and finesse above all, and every Ultimate frisbee player must prioritize fitness, squash encourages a different focus for each player.

A cunning 60-year-old could beat a fit college student or it could go the other way. Thanks to this diversity, squash also creates room for creativity in style and training; where Selby may focus on cross training, Ghosal may focus on precision. With its unique blend of finesse, trickery and brute strength, squash offers a unique mixture of qualities for each player. Squash is thus composed of a rich and varied player base age-wise, and ethnicity-wise from Australia to Egypt to Menlo Park.