It's Not Just A Warm-up

A friend recently suggested that I put some of the pinball thoughts in my head down and see what happens. So here we go. Ding, ding!

It’s 5:41pm on Tuesday. You come tearing in off the street after making it through a busy day, a subway slowdown and a couple of sidewalk daydreamers, with four minutes to spare before your match. Into the locker room, into your kit, on with your shoes, and out to the courts where you see your opponent leisurely dismounting from the bike, limber, focused and grinning. What to do? Well, first, accept that you are not going to start the match at optimum physical readiness, second, get focused on where you are and what you’re doing right now, and third, learn as much as you can about this person (as a squash player) in the first 5-10 minutes. You’re going to need all the information you can get!

Be your own sous-chef

If you step on court and you’re not a little out of breath and sweating a little, it is unlikely that the energy systems you need to play a hard rally have been activated. You need to a) get yourself moving and working (see below), and b) have a plan for how to begin the match and play ‘well enough’ that you take some energy from your opponent and build your confidence.

During the warm-up:

• Hit the shots you like, the ones that you know give your opponents trouble. Don’t keep these secret! Better that your opponent know about them than they be so far up your sleeve you can’t reach them until the third game.

• Figure out how to hit the line and length you need today. It’s always a little different, even on your home courts, so don’t assume you know where the back wall is!

• Do not hit to yourself too much. Use the warm-up to find out about your opponent’s style and skills. Do they like pace or height. Do they volley? Are they willing to run? How are they in the back of the court? What does it look like when they hit a drop? A drive? A crosscourt?

In the first rallies of each game, be wary of charging in with an aggressive, reinvigorated spurt of energy. If you were down last game 10-6 and lost 11-9, you won 3 of the last 4 points. Cold comfort, perhaps, but it means you’ve got the momentum. Be clear about what gave you that and be deliberate about carrying on with whatever you were doing. If it went the other way, then first you need to slow them down, so find the length and width you honed in on during the warm up.

As your body, so your mind

My dad was great believer in the physical. He told me over and over that if I would get to the ‘T’, bend my knees and get my racquet ready, my mind would be more engaged and focused. This is a true thing. Use the warm-up and the first few rallies to move consciously (even a little exaggeratedly) into position. You’re trying to knock that work conversation, the subway and those dawdlers out of you head so that you can play squash!

Spycraft

By the end of the first game (maybe second), you should have an idea of where it is safe to put the ball. Often it’s high on their backhand, but it might also be the front right, or close to them on their forehand. The outcome of the first game is not as important as what you can learn if you can keep them out there for a while. Extend the rallies (more about how I used to do that in a later post), poke around, don’t worry about the score too much.

Later in the match, when you are under pressure - and that can look all sorts of ways - remind yourself of those safe spots.

More to come, folks!

I hope that this provides some ideas and food for thought.