A Response to James Willstrop on Squash Players and Wimbledon by Ferez S. Nallaseth, Ph.D.
July 10, 2015
Is James Willstrop's question, how would Squash Players do at Wimbledon
irrelevant? Sharif Khan's wins over Bjorn Borg, John McEnroe and
Guillermo Vilas in the World Rackets Championships say yes - and very
much so!
James Willstrop is a former World # 1 Squash Player and has given us us
the privilege of watching some of the greatest matches ever played by a
Pro! Personally I have always looked forward to catching up with James
at the Tournament of Champions in New York!
But did James ask at the very least, an irrelevant question? The record
at the World Racquets (or the Racket Masters) Championships played in
the 1970s and 1980s says - yes and very much so! CBS Sports (moderated
by Pat Summerall and US Davis Cup Captain Tony Trabert)
implicitly tested which of the basics common to all racket sports -
racketwork, footwork, spatial sense, physical conditioning, mental
toughness, etc.. which when developed in any 1 of 5 racquet sports
elevated these traits and performance levels in all the rest. The
Answer in 3 of the 4 years it was played was resoundingly Squash:
represented by multiple North American Open Champion ( & British
Open Semi Finalist Sharif Khan) over: (1) Tennis (Bjorn Borg x 1, Johnn
McEnroe x 1, Guillermo Vilas x 2), (2) Badminton (World Champion
Fleming Delfs x 1, & others), (3) Racketball (Marty Hogan x?, &
others), (4) Table tennis (Danny Seemiller, US National Champion &
World ranked player). The reason for Sharif not winning the tournament
in the 4th year? The absence of Squash and the organizers preventing
him form playing Racketball because it was too similar to Squash!!!This
is a raw unanalysed result! The partially analysed data and
more facts are presented in the links below.
Just 2 limited examples for why Squash is a far more physically,
technically and strategically demanding game than Tennis are: (1)
the numbers of surfaces that the ball can spin off (13 in Squash - 4
walls, 4 corners (underestimated vectors), 3 nicks, racket & court
vs 2 in Tennis - racket & court) and (2) the semi contact and 3D
(excluding vector z) nature of stroke making/retrieval in Squash vs
front to front and across the net (Squash - front, side, back vs front
only). The problem that Squash has is two fold! One is communicating
its complexity! At its highest levels it depends on a huge dynamic
range and density of strokes and moves which are extremely difficult to
capture and communicate with current broadcast technology! Secondly,
its top players, who are the greatest Racket Athletes who ever walked
the face of the earth, have synthesized and integrated the most
physical and difficult of strokes moves and conditioning to the point
of making it effortless and the game looks boringly physical! This best
emerges from the failed attempts of Sports Physiologists to quantify
the true physical intensity of the game (METs indices of cals/kg/hr)
even with Squash specific tests (designed to generate the explosive
movements and arrhythmicity characteristic of Squash with computerized
versions of Jonah Barrington's Ghosting). There are solutions to this
problem but unfortunately the leadership in the game has yet to
appreciate this simple problem!
Having said all this let me hasten to qualify it by adding that the top
Racket Athletes would be good in any Racket Sport - that has never been
the question! The question is whether their full potential is tested by
their Racket Sport of choice? The answer is clear!
It is well known in the racket sports that there are things that can
only be known by doing them and not by analyzing or reading about them.
And so the top 5 ranked players in the world know (and do things) that
are unknown and undoable by players ranked 6-10 and so on down the
line. We also know this because these players not only can do
exceptional things on the court but can also often communicate them to
juniors.
However, in reading James' question there is a very necessary corollary
that needs to be added. There are very obvious limits to their
comprehensive, analytical and communicative abilities in their own
sport which muddies the waters!
