How long does a typical squash match last?

This question of how long a typical squash match lasts is very interesting, because with it flows the inevitable problem of how to ensure that you are physically and emotionally fit enough to withstand all the demands that the squash match will bring.

Recently there has been a shift in both the amateur and the professional to adopt the Even or American score where every point counts regardless of who is serving. This tends to shorten the total time of the match, as players constantly move their score on each play to their goal of 11 points. If they reach 10 points, each player must win by a clear margin of 2 points 14-12. International scoring was played with a scoring method in which a player had to be serving and winning the rally to score a point.

I witnessed the longest match. It was played at the 1983 Chichester Open England between Pakistani world champion Jahangir Khan and Egypt’s number one Gamal Awad, whom I coach between matches. He had been my training partner for a couple of years and we had discussed a plan.

The first game lasted 75 minutes. The plan was not to open the court and just wear Jahangir down. Gamal followed the game plan brilliantly, but Jahangir equaled it length for length. The first play lasted 7 minutes and resulted in a let, which means that the point was repeated.

The first point was scored at 15 minutes and the full match, which was only 4 games, was 2 hours 46 minutes. What do you say to a guy who came back from an 8-1 deficit to win the game but has to face the onslaught of winning 2 more games? All Gamal could ask of me was to please rub his legs as they had cramps, he knew he couldn’t go on like this forever, but he was prepared to try to follow the game plan. We had no idea how Jahangir felt, it couldn’t have been great, but that first game had taken its toll.

He played the rest of the game and in the middle of the second game he started looking for winners because he knew he had given everything he had to give. The final result was 9-10,9-5, 9-7, 9-2.

The interesting thing about this game was that Gamal was never the same again. This match broke his spirit, realizing that he couldn’t beat Jahangir was devastating for him, and he withdrew from the competition a few years later.

Squash lost a legend when in 2004 at the age of 49 he died suddenly of a heart attack.

The longest women’s match was 1 hour 57 minutes, with 90 seconds between matches and with a 5-minute warm-up, the match lasted a total of 2 hours 7 minutes. It was played in 1981 at Mayfair Parkway in Toronto in the final of the Women’s World Championship between Rhonda Thorne now Clayton and Vicki Hoffman now Cardwell.

This match also had a tragic outcome, the loss of friendship between these two fellow Australians. Vicki was fine the entire time, she was number one in the world and Rhonda, her training partner and teammate, was number two, but the moment she was reversed, it seemed to be more than Vicki could accept. Emotionally, it took Vicki years to absorb this. Very often this is the case in life when the status quo is upset, the new order is not always easily accepted.

This match even changed Rhonda, who after having achieved the goal she had been striving for for so long, lost some of her competitive edge and retired a couple of years later after the 1983 Squash Women’s World Championship in Australia. . Again, this is not uncommon in life to focus and push towards a goal once achieved, resetting a new destination is often very challenging.

Now, most amateur games last around 35 minutes for amateurs and 45 minutes for professionals. This means that there has been a slight change in the emotional and physical demands of the competitors. Scoring favors the opportunist and with shorter rallies the intensity must inevitably be high, any lack of focus will likely mean a point is scored, unlike international scorers where there could only be a loss of serve.

However, make sure that anyone who wins a major competition will have to focus, focus, and gather reserves of strength and courage to ultimately emerge victorious.