Making your short shots even shorter. 

Squash is all about the small details. Anything you can do to make your shots that tiny bit better or get back to the T-Position a second quicker is worth doing. In this case, there’s a small thing you can do to make your Kills a little bit shorter and make them that bit more deadly.

For information on playing a Kill, please visit our page on how to play a Kill here. 

Using the side wall to slow the ball

To make your Kills that bit shorter and cause your opponent to move further up the court, you can angle them to hit the side wall – ideally the nick. The best way to achieve this angle is to make sure you get really round the ball and very side-on – almost too much so. It can also help to hit the ball a little bit later than normal.

You do of course also need to use a very nasty high to low swing to generate the downward angle to give you a chance of hitting the nick.

Deception from the back 

I find this is a particularly effective way of playing a Kill from the back of the court. If you go into a shot at the back of the court with a big swing, it looks like you’re going to play a Straight Drive and so often people will start dropping back. This makes it all the worse when your Kill hits the side wall and ends up even shorter than a normal Kill would.

Do your best to push high up the court hunting the Volley or an attacking shot as people will often play a loose ball of middling height in response as they are caught out by the angle.

Have a go and see just how short you can make your Kills go.

Take a look at the 2016 Shot of the Year – Omar Mosaad playing a fantastic Straight Kill into the nick.