Squash Company

Squash coaching with passion

How often should you replace the grip on your racket?

Often!

This is a question I get asked on a regular basis and the real answer is it varies from player to player. The biggest factors are how much you sweat, how much you play, but perhaps most importantly, how seriously you take squash.

For information on how to actually hold the racket, check out our page on how to grip the racket.

Yuck! 



Regular players – playing three – four times a week 

If you’re playing three or four times a week, you should probably change your grip at least every two weeks, if not earlier, if you want to avoid your grip adversely affecting or distracting you. You can of course hold out for longer, but you may start to find your racket starts to slip at crucial moments, especially when hitting the ball hard. It can also start to feel rough when you’re trying to control drops or drop volleys.

There are a lot of very high level player who will change their grip far more frequently than this even, some even every match! You might be surprised at how much of a difference changing your grip this regularly can make, especially with getting touch shots like drops just right.

Weekly players – one – two times a week 

If you’re playing once or twice a week, you probably ought to change your grip once every month, although this it does depend on you and how much you sweat and how sensitive to change your hands are.

Irregular players – one – two times a month or less

It often seems that players who play less need a new grip the most. It can be easy to think given you’ve not played for a while that you don’t need a new grip. Often this is not the case though as the ravages of time can take their toll on your grip! If you’ve left your racket in your garage for a while you might find the grip starts to colour in your hand!

Telltale signs that death has come for your grip 

  • If your grip is a light colour and is starting to go dark or is black!
  • The racket slips out of your hand. This is usually more obvious when you try to hit the ball hard.
  • You’re finding it difficult to get a high level of control on touch shots, like the drop or drop volley.
  • If the grip is fraying or is starting to flake or colouring your hands; how did you let it get to that stage?!

A new grip is long overdue! 

As with everything, it does vary from player to player. If you sweat a lot or play lots of intensive games, you will undoubtedly go through grips quicker than someone who plays the same amount as you but at a lower level. Keep an eye on your grip and watch out for the telltale signs and go with what keeps you feeling consistent with your hitting. It won’t make you the best player at the club (if you weren’t the best already!), but it is part of making sure you are well prepared and have everything in place to perform at your best, which certainly adds up and creates a platform to be the best.

Check out our posts on balls, rackets and strings for how get the best out of your equipment. 




Extending your racket in the front corner 

Sometimes when someone plays a really good drop shot, you need every bit of help you can get to return it with interest or even return it at all. Any little extra thing that can help is worth knowing and today we’ll be discussing how you can go full stretch with your racket by changing your grip as you move into the shot, which is an incredibly important skill to practice.



Holding the very base of the racket 

The end goal is to hold your racket at the very base of the grip to the extent that there is only a small amount of the grip between your thumb and fingers. You will of course be surrendering a lot of control over the ball by doing this but when you are at full stretch, keeping the ball in has to be the main aim.

As you move into the front corner, and do try to move very directly straight towards the ball, shift your hand to the base of the grip and the absolute lowest point you can keep hold of the grip without losing control or dropping your racket. You are aiming to essentially bounce the ball off the very top of the strings and into the front corner. It certainly won’t have a lot of pace on it but with a bit of practice and the right body angle – having the body facing towards the front corner – you can keep the ball fairly tight to the side wall.

If you are able to, also try to make sure you are also able to stretch back out towards the T-Position too in order to cover a long shot.

For more information about how to hold the racket, check out our page on the grip. 



The importance of the grip



Allowing for a full spectrum of shots and effects. 

I fight on an almost daily basis with the players (particularly the juniors) about how they hold the racket.

It’s fiddly and it’s niggly and it’s not easy to practice but ignoring your grip is a very short-termist way of playing as it creates more and more problems the further you get in squash.

The most important factor of any grip in my opinion is that it allows for flexibility and manoeuvrability.

For more information on how hold the racket, go to our Squash School Page on the Grip here. 

grip a squash racket like this

Range of shots: Drops and Lobs

The most common problem people have with their grip is that they hold it so that the racket face is ‘closed’ – meaning the racket face is either facing downwards or is horizontal. The grip should ensure that the face is facing upwards slightly, called an ‘Open’ racket face. The big problem comes when attempting to play a variety of shots. A bad grip might not stop you from hitting good straight drives or hitting the ball really hard, but it becomes a real problem when you start trying to use more areas of the front wall, particularly the top and bottom. The most difficult shot for players with bad grips is the lob shot, as they find it very hard to lift the ball when their racket face is naturally facing downwards or flat. They have to seriously adapt to have any chance of getting the required height for a good lob shot and this is difficult to do consistently and very hard when under any sort of pressure and not good given how important lobbing is!

It can also affect drops in a similar way. If someone has a closed racket face, they will find it difficult to get a consistent drop shot, as the ball will always want to go downwards when they hit it. You might not think this is a bad thing when aiming to play a drop shot but it means the margin for error is much smaller, as if they were to hit the ball when it’s a little bit lower on the bounce, it’s very likely to hit the tin. A player with this sort of racket face would have to always hit the ball when it’s quite high on the bounce to avoid hitting the ball down, which won’t always be possible or desirable.

It means you don’t have flexibility or manoeuvrability, which for me is the main job of the grip.

Errors & quality

As suggested above with the drops, having a bad grip can lead to errors when playing the drops but it can also have a negative impact on just about every shot. If the racket face is too closed, a player will struggle to achieve a high standard of length on a consistent basis, especially from the back corners. The racket face being flat or too closed will lead to the angle of the shot always being downwards, which isn’t always a bad thing. I’ve talked in other blogs about how it’s important to swing downwards, but the problem here is that it’s not deliberate. It’s worth saying one more time that your grip should allow you a full range of options, not restrict you to just doing one thing with the ball.

It’s never too late to change your grip. It really can revolutionise every aspect of your game, so do use our grip page to check how you’re getting on.




How to grip a squash racket




Holding the racket can be a very fiddly business for players of all levels – this guide will help you grip a squash racket properly!

Lay the handle of the racket across the top of your palm so that it is resting just below the base of your fingers.

lay the squash racket over the palm of your hand
lay the squash racket over the palm of your hand

Make sure the racket is laying across the top of your palm at a slight angle, so that the side of the racket that will make contact with the ball is at an angle greater than 90 degrees. The racket face should not be facing straight towards the front wall or worse, pointing towards the floor at an angle smaller than 90 degrees like a tennis racket, which means the ball will always go downwards unless players go to great lengths with the wrist and lower arm.

the way to grip a squash racket is often described as like shaking a hand
the way to grip a squash racket is often described as like shaking a hand

The way the hand grips the racket is often described as being like shaking someones hand. This is a good way to imagine the basic grip. Ensure that your index finger, known here as the trigger finger, protrudes upwards slightly away from the rest of the fingers, making a V-Shape with the thumb.

It is universally recommended that you hold the racket in the middle of the grip. This is because it enables you to get a balance between power and control. The lower you hold the racket, the easier it is to achieve power and the higher you hold the racket the easier it is to achieve control. It is not necessarily wrong to hold it at the lower or upper end though, so feel free to experiment. If you are struggling for power or control on a consistent basis though, it might be best to hold the racket in the middle.

A lower squash racket grip
A lower grip

Lastly, your hold on the racket should be firm but not rigid. You can test this by having someone try to pull the racket out of your hand. If you are gripping it correctly, it should gradually slide out of your hand. If someone is tugging your racket fiercely and it won’t move, you are holding it far too tight.

grip a squash racket like this

More squash tips




Changing your grip and racket face for different shots in Squash



Have you ever tried changing the grip for different shots? Or changed the way you hold your racket during a rally to aid a particular shot? Or played with the angle of the racket face from the default stance of ‘open’? Perhaps you’ve gripped your racket higher up the handle when the ball was in the back corners of the court in order to give you more control and leverage for digging a dying ball out of the back. Or maybe you’ve opened your grip up to further open the racket face when going for a drop shot.

Amr Shabana, the Four-Time World Open Champion, does this to great effect. He frequently slides his hand up and down his racket, changing the grip depending on the shot he is playing.

As a general rule of thumb, the lower you hold the racket on the handle, the more power you get. The higher you hold it, the more control. This is why it is almost universally recommended that you grip the handle somewhere in the middle, so that you can achieve both.

There are certainly shots and situations where changing your grip can help though, such as in the aforementioned example of being in the back corner. Holding the racket a little higher allows you to get more control on the ball and not only stay in a rally but stay in it with interest.

Changing your grip and racket face for different shots

As a general rule of thumb, the lower you hold the racket on the handle, the more power you get. The higher you hold it, the more control. This is why it is almost universally recommended that you grip the handle somewhere in the middle, so that you can achieve both.”

It can also help to shift the grip so that the face is more open from the back, giving you a bit more bite from the back.

If you’re feeling particularly bold, try closing your racket face for particularly aggressive drives or kills, as this has the effect of keeping the ball very low. You can also try to do this  when going for an aggressive boast, which can make the ball flatline and die.

It might feel a little clumsy at first but it’s something you should experiment with as it can really make all the difference in challenging situations.

For more information on how you should be holding your racket, visit our page on the grip here.