Improve your squash: advantages of looking at the ball at all times

Watching the squash ball during a rally is the single most important thing you can do to improve your game. Never take your eyes off the ball during a rally. If you’re afraid to look at the ball when it’s behind you, wear safety goggles. It’s impossible to reach your potential if you don’t keep your eyes on the ball constantly. Watching the ball as it leaves your opponent’s racket, particularly when the ball is behind you, will dramatically increase your ability to:

Better judge your opponent’s shot

You’ll get your first idea of ​​where your opponent’s shot is going when the ball leaves their racket. You can collect information about the direction, trajectory, speed and height of the shot so that your brain can calculate where you will need to be to hit it. To accurately track the ball, you need to keep your eyes on the ball at all times. If you wait to see the ball come off the front wall, you will have lost about half of the valuable trajectory input needed to accurately judge the shot played.

Better anticipate your opponent’s shot

Just watching the ball leave your opponent’s racket within a fraction of a second at impact will allow you to anticipate your shot.

Important: If you are turning your head towards the front wall before impact, you are not anticipating it, you are guessing! To volley particularly well, you need to see the ball early to be on your way to intercepting it. If you learn to anticipate if they’re driving, falling, flaunting or crossing the pitch, then that’s half the battle right there. Anticipation only works when you look at the ball when it’s behind you.

Research shows that “expert” players can predict the opponent’s shot with a very high level of accuracy up to 600 milliseconds before impact. Important cues for early decision making: arm and racket movement, especially 160-80ms before impact and ball flight immediately (up to 80ms) after impact.

The two main sources of information used by expert players are:

1. Probability: the opponent’s strategic habits, the opponent’s technical skills and his position on the court;

2. Postural cues emitted by the opponent, specifically the movement of the arm and racket leading to contact with the ball.

Research has shown that expert players do not have a better “sight” than beginners or look at different signals than beginners when looking for information on which to base their decision about what is about to happen. Rather, skilled players seem to make better use of the information available, especially with respect to the opponent’s arm and racket action.

Expert players also identify or pick up game patterns better than beginners.

Anticipation skills range from the simple – predicting the ball’s bounce – to the ability to read the play well enough to volley a fast ball hit from the front court by a “cheating” player. These skills become automatic with experience, but traditionally, we’ve only developed these skills by playing matches.

Better move down the court, have a better rhythm

Watching the ball when it’s behind you is vital to movement. This, in turn, will increase your speed towards the ball and allow you to move at the proper speed, without overshooting the ball. Passing the ball is one of the biggest problems at a beginner level.

If you watch the front wall, you will only have the sound of your opponent hitting the ball or the ball entering your peripheral vision to react to as well. This will often cause your feet to move late or very late respectively, and will make you at a huge disadvantage in getting to your opponent’s tight shots.

Looking improves your speed around the court dramatically without making you physically faster. I think looking good at the ball will make you much faster on the squash court than physically.

Only by constantly watching the ball come off your opponent’s racket when the ball is behind you at the back of the court will you learn a rhythm for moving around the squash court.

Rhythm is an integral part of any sport, facilitating all movements.

Make a better tactical decision

The more time you have available in this fast game, the better your decisions will be.

Play safer and avoid decisions against you.

Looking helps you get out of the way of the swing of the racket and the ball, while your opponent strikes back. Wear glasses if he is afraid to look. Without looking at the ball, your progress will be limited and can be dangerous. Watch the ball, and if it’s too close and within the “line of fire,” move out of the way, but don’t take your eyes off the ball. You can’t always get back to the T when you hit a loose shot. Move your T position if necessary.

The downside of not looking at the ball when your opponent is behind is that you can be guilty of not punt and worse, not trying to punt. That can be the difference between a stroke and a let.