Squash VS Tennis

Last night I played a couple of games of social competition Tennis. Infuriatingly our opponents were dirty Smurfs one of whom was particularly patronising. But I digress, I usually play Squash on a Monday night (just with a bunch of the lads) and it is a lot of fun. But what I have noticed is that the techniques for holding a Squash racquet and playing a shot is very different from those techniques used in Tennis.

Most obviously is the force applied to the ball and height of the return. Squash is played on a court about the size of half a Tennis court. However in Squash the surface area of play is much greater (incorporating the side walls) also the height of the playable shots is much lower than a Tennis net. The strokes I play in Squash are forceful to carry a small heavy ball against the wall for the effect of the rebound.

So as a comparison in Tennis I'm trying to land a ball within a smaller playing surface area on a flat trajectory. The net (sic) result is a major modification of how I hold the racquet and serve and return and more or less every thing. This manifested itself in very slow play, though I was happy with the accuracy. Tennis is just another skill to learn but I am amused at the experience that Squash has given me for both sports.

For the record I lost every game, but did win a couple of points.