Making your height work for you.

Welcome to part three of our squash player problems posts! This week we’ll be looking at how tall players can and need to use their height for them in order to be more effective players.

You can see Squash Player Problems Part I: Fast player problems here and Part II: Skilled player problems here.

Controlling the T-Position 

Tall players typically aren’t the most mobile around the court and rarely have the pace of smaller players, so relying on retrieving shots isn’t really the best way for a tall player to go about playing squash.

Instead, taller players should look to use their height in order to control the T-Position and the game. If a tall player maximises their control of the T-Position, they can control the pace of the game, volley when they want, dominate the central areas of the court and prove very hard to dislodge.

Therefore tall players should really work on developing their volley skills and ball control on the volley. If they do this, they can become an immovable object on the T-Position. Everyone has played against someone they found next to impossible to remove from the T-Position. This person can be you if you are a tall player; it needs to be you. Tall players are typically less able to rely on retrieving the ball and using pace to stay in the rally and so must seek to be more proactive in the rally than reactive. Reacting to their opponent’s play doesn’t tend to get the same success as with players who have lower centres of gravity.

If you are a tall player, I really recommend developing your volley lob, which you can use to intercept your opponent’s shots and hold onto the T-Position and the drop volley, which is a really flexible attacking shot you can use without too much risk.

Moving as little as possible 

If you’re a tall player, focus on seeing how close you can stay to the central areas of the court. Test yourself and see how far you can stretch into shots. This will enable you to always be very close to the centre of the court and make it very hard for your opponent to find easy gaps to hit the ball into and therefore very hard for them to make you run.

If you are on the taller side, use your height and reach to your advantage; stretch in as much as possible and volley anything and everything you can. Become an immovable object on the T-Position and do your best not to get into a running contest!