Rossendale Squash Academy

How to play Squash

The Squash Court

court

Before You Play

  1. Make sure you have everything you need to play and are wearing the right clothes. You need to wear sports clothes and trainers (shorts and a t-shirt are best as you can get very hot when playing) You can usually borrow a racket and ball from the centre you’re playing at but if you have your own, don’t forget to bring them!
  2. Water is the other must it’s essential to keep hydrated and healthy when you play.
  3. Make sure you warm up properly.
  4. Scoring! Scoring is really simple; the first person to get to 11 points wins the game. The person who wins the point gets to serve and will keep serving until their opponent wins one. Then it’s their turn to serve until they lose a point.

Respect

Show respect for your competitors and yourself at all times. Never act in a rude or unsportsmanlike way to your opponent or to anyone watching the game.

During the Game

  1. Getting the serve right. To start the game (and every point you play), the serve must be in a certain place on the court. When you serve, your foot must be in the ‘service box’ (the square in the corner of the court) and the ball must hit the front wall between the two red lines. It then has to land in the opposite box to where you are stood.
  2. For squash, the ball must not be bounced before the serve, in Racketball the ball can bounce once before you serve. This is the only difference in the rules of both games.
  3. Getting the ball back. When you are returning the serve it must hit the front wall between the tin at the bottom of the wall and the out line at the top. It can hit any of the other walls before it gets there but cannot touch the floor. If it bounces, it is out.
  4. Rallies. A rally is when both players correctly return the ball to each other. You win a rally if your opponent does not serve properly or does not get the ball back to you properly.

If at any time you think you will hit the person you are playing STOP and you can start the point again. This is known as a ‘let’.

After the Game

Make sure you properly warm down so you don’t injure yourself.