To steal a line from Mark Twain's remarks on Fenimore Cooper, it seems to me that it was far from right for Ferez Nallaseth to deliver opinions about tennis without having played some of it. It would have been more decorous to keep silent and let persons talk who have played both games.
Tennis is vastly more technically difficult than squash. Period. This is a simple matter of empirical fact, not subject to Ferez's speculations about cumulative angles or whatnot. There are MANY tennis players who have taken up squash at University or later and become quite proficient. I have never encountered nor heard of a single example of the reverse. Niederhoffer won the junior championship in squash after a couple of month's playing. Even all those years ago nobody could have done that in tennis.
I have had a number of squash students who could do rudimentary versions of complex squash drills such as boast-drop-drive their first day on the court. Seldom have I seen a player sustain a decent baseline rally his or her first day on the tennis court.
In the matter of Sharif, I had a friend who visited the rackets championships and said it was quite obvious that Sharif was the only competitor among the non tennis players who HAD played serious tennis, and, tennis being as difficult as it is, that put Sharif streets ahead of the rest. The racquetball was, of course, a shoe-in for him. That gave him two sports in the bag. I don't want to take anything away from Sharif, but it's simply true that a non-tennis player, even one who is at a high level in another racket sport, cannot hit two balls into the court.
At the top level there have always been a few world class athletes in squash, and I think the numbers are growing much deeper. Nonetheless, anyone who even watches sports can tell that the levels of natural and acquired ability run far deeper on the tennis tour than they do on the squash circuit. How could that not be the case when there are exponentially more tennis players AND exponentially more prize money in the sport? I admire James Willstrop, but gosh, Ferez, do you really imagine him in the final four at Wimbledon? When Willstrop would get a win against Ramy he did it by using the side walls to take the athleticism OUT of the game. You can't do that in modern tennis.
I love squash, and it has the advantage over tennis that it can be great fun for the only moderately proficient. It also provides far more vigorous exercise until you get to a very high level of tennis. The enclosed space provides an intensity not felt in all but the very best tennis matches. Let's celebrate squash for what it is without feeling the need to give it an entirely fictitious nod in the area of technical difficulty.
Dear Sasha,
ReplyDeleteI beg to differ! This has nothing to do with decorum although I can appreciate its overwhelming importance to some!! It has everything to do with the relevance of the question that James Willstrop asked - 'How would Squash Players do at Wimbledon? Not well!' And the barrage of assertions that you have thrown up are equally irrelevant to the point being raised. Why? It is completely irrelevant given the results of the World Rackets (Racket Masters) Championships, which is the relevant way to test the question, as must have been agreed to by at least one of the moderators US Davis Cup Captain Tony Trabert, that James (and others who have become needless apologists for Squash are trying to say)! And Sharif Khans dominance of all the Players in the other Racket Sports - not just Tennis supported the relevance of this test, if you analyze all the sports - carefully! Of course as I pointed out in the article, I agree with you that somethings can only be known, the way top Racket Athletes know them, by doing them on the courtI
But of equal and converse importance, there are untold numbers of neurophysiological processes that lead to things like making a stroke or 'a get', that neuroscientists are sort of aware from a large body of work, and have to exist in our brains/minds, which are the source of all such processes, that are unknowable to even the greatest of Racket Athletes!
The dynamic range and density of vectors in racquet work, footwork, spatial sense, etc.. and the associated variables that have to be mastered in Squash are far greater than in Tennis - which is why Sharif won and not because he dabbled in Tennis! Similarly Heather McKay, 16 time British Open Champion became the 'World Champion' in Racketball - among many other things because she had mastered far greater numbers of vectors in Squash than can possibly exist in Racketball!! And I know this because I personally saw World Champion Marty Hogan play a C Division match in Hardball Squash in the Boodles Gin Tournament in Washington ~1983 . I assure you it was not quite the performance of Victor Niederhoffer (World #4) in Racketball that I saw in New York. But all 3 of these results are IRRELEVANT - they are like comparing apples and oranges and not the internally controlled test of the World Rackets (Racket Masters) Championships! I suggest you look at the analysis of the racket sports in those links that were posted in that article, that offends you so greatly! Instead of putting up this pious bluster - and counter each of them factually and not cosmetically or explosively!
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ReplyDeleteI have made it clear that I have nothing but awe and admiration for what the top Tennis (and other Racket) Players do! Especially Tennis Players who dig out the high momentum (heavy) Tennis ball ball with heavy Tennis rackets from the deep corners of the court and when they are fully extended on a slippery surface (witness the numbers of falls that Novak Djokovic took in today's Wimbledon Final). This hard stop, turn on a dime, dimension of Squash i.e. 'the dig', and to an extent all the other racket sports which are played on high traction wooden surfaces, is another dimension which is negligible if not absent in Tennis.
Although I do not like bringing this up because, again its apples and oranges, as a matter of fact I have dabbled in Tennis in the US and in India. And as a 50+ something I played Squash twice versus a 20+ something Harvard#1 and Irish #1 Mens Tennis Player at the Harvard Club. It was a good match and we split it!
And just for your information I am a Professional Scientist I look for ways of establishing FACTs And on those rare occasions when I have been wrong made sure that this emerges because it comes with the territory!! But by and large when the odds were most heavily turned (and across the globe) against our work, which is of fundamental importance to the Public Interest (feel free to visit my Professional Site - especially the article on the Life Sciences Institute of NJ) I have been right and stuck to it when it cost me my career, finances and a heart attack! This is the discipline, and among other things, the 'deep dig' that I learned on the Squash Court! The same place that has led Roger Federer, Rafa Nadal as well as their Great predecessor Champions in Tennis, of the likes of Ken Rosewall, Bjorn Borg, Rod Laver, John Newcombe among others to find and try and introduce as much as is physically possible, into their Tennis games! Finally, 'the dig' and the strokes from Squash were obvious in many of the drops and behind the back cross-courts that Roger Federer played in today's Final!
Kind regards,
Ferez
Ferez S. Nallaseth, Ph.D.
Tennis is a lot harder than squash and there is much, much more depth in the ranks. A good teenage athlete can pick up squash and do reasonably well in the juniors in a short time. It doesn't work that way in tennis. Most top squash players failed at tennis along the way.
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ReplyDeleteWith all due respect Sharif Khan's performance against the top 3 Tennis (and other Rackets) Players of his time in the most relevant test accepted by all concerned has to be explained! And not just wished away. Yes Tennis is more difficult to learn than Squash as it uses heavier rackets and balls which are not contained by the walls. However, e.g. as Squash players get better they use those walls as offensive and defensive weapons and not merely for containment of the ball. This is another dimension that is absolutely missing in Tennis! There are many more similar vectors/factors that have to be integrated in Squash than in Tennis - and in every dimension (footwork, racketwork, spatial sense, conditioning, etc..) common to all racket sports (please feel free to visit all the links in the link below)! And so getting to the top in Squash is much harder and requires greater athletic maturity than in Tennis - witness the age disparities of the top players in the 2 games.
ReplyDeleteYes there are more Tennis Players than Squash Players globally and depth and numbers in a sport speak to its complexity. But in Squash 41% of 73 British Opens were won by members of a small nation, Pakistan, and mostly by one tribe and village. This then is the exception to the rule! Tennis looks and in some limited ways, (e.g. high momentum balls and heavy rackets, slippery grass, cal and hard courts, etc...), is more difficult than Squash! But these are the very things which restricts the improvisation and numbers of vectors in it that are at a premium in Squash. Yes Tennis looks more Stately or Olympian and mastering the small moves and strokes in Squash that elevate performance exponentially looks mundane because they are much harder to detect and even more difficult to televise! Whats more the racket athleticism of the top Squash Players makes it look easy! Which is why the game seems easy! All this still does not diminish the results contributed by Sharif and raised by that question that James Willstrop posed!
http://www.dailysquashreport.com/7_11_15_ferez.htm
James Willstrop could have been a top tennis player if he played tennis all along, because he has the requisite size and is quicker than most pro tennis players his size. Sarah Jane Perry would be the best of the women. Most of the rest of the squash tour professionals are too small for tennis.
ReplyDeleteIf a single dimension like height or serve can give any player such an overwhelming advantage at the top levels of play it further supports the limited nature of the vectors/dimensions of any Racket Sport including Tennis. There is no single factor that can skew the competitive balance so completely in Squash! One of the greatest players in the History of Squash, Hashim Khan, was 5' 3" while his opponents including Abdul Bari, a British Open Finalist from our courts at the Cricket Club of India, were 6' tall! Yet Hashim won and overcame many other deficits, including beginning an International Squash career at the late age of 37!
ReplyDeleteOn the Women's tour in Squash Nicol David the current World #1 is 5' 4" while her opponents like Laura Massaro World #2 and a recent British Open Champion are 5' 8". Height, power, speed, serve, etc.. as single dimensions will not give a player the overwhelming advantage to get to the top of the rankings in Squash because of the many more vectors that have to be integrated. In tennis a Wild Card like Goran Ivanisevic can serve his way to a Wimbledon title even though the rest of his game is pedestrian! This has never happened in Squash since there far more vectors that have to be mastered than in Tennis!
Tennis is a lovely friendly game, you can even do underarm serves if you have to. The breaks to pick up the ball give plenty of rest periods and given the basic 4 point game with a nice long rest in-between, even an unfit person can play at his own level of skill for most of the day!
ReplyDeleteThe Tennis skills being one dimensional are relatively easy to execute as the ball only comes from one direction; the changes of direction while running are less frequent and slower than is the case when playing squash using all four walls, with a ball that can travel during the rally at 180 miles per hour. As for the skills comparison, squash is an easier game to play "badly" than tennis, but the skill required to hit nicks is equal to hitting the lines at tennis. The skill to play a telling drop shot in squash is a much finer skill than the tennis drop shot. On the whole I think it is a pointless exercise trying to make skill comparisons as all players and game situations are different.
I would just point out that the squash rally tends to be longer, there is much less rest between points – that is unless you are playing a tennis player who has hit you with the racket and/or the ball a few times and you need to take medical breaks. This happens because the tennis player has no idea where the ball is going or where his opponent is on the court.
The squash player will do the most of his work when playing his tennis enthusiast friend, while ducking and weaving to avoid his opponent’s agricultural wide swing and uncontrolled follow through. The tennis player often only wins a game of squash by a knock-out!
If you want a definitive answer to the physical question, ask Roger Federer (he has played squash), what would give him the best physical work out - 30 min squash against an equal opponent, or a set against a top ten tennis player?
There is no doubt that squash provides a more intense cardio vascular workout. The modern tennis game, however, requires enormously powerful swings to take advantage of the new strings, the distances run are greater than they used to be as those spins create angles, and there are fewer errors as those spins keep the ball in the court. Were Hunt and Jahanghir fitter than Mcenroe? Indisputable. Are Ramy and Gaultier fitter than Nadal and Djokovic? Perhaps in a very narrowly defined variable such as VO2 max, because, as you rightly say, there is far more recovery time in tennis. Overall strength, muscular endurance and other variables? Hard to say, but put the four of them on an obstacle course or a crossfit WOD and I know where my money is.
DeleteThe question of which requires the greater skill is instantly answered by asking anyone who has taught and coached both sports and is reasonably disinterested. There may be some who will be loath to disappoint their squash constituency, as it were, by admitting the gulf, but they'll know the truth.
As I recall, the format for the rackets championship meant that everyone played every sport but his own. The squash guys played tennis, racketball and ping-pong, the tennis guys played squash, racketball and ping-pong and so forth. If you pause to reflect for a moment, you will see that, other things being equal, the squash guy starts with a racketball win and the racketball guy probably, but not as certainly, starts with a squash win because of the similarities between the two sports. (The squash guy gets the firmer nod because of the greater technical difficulty of his sport.)
The tennis will not be won by the best athlete or the one whose home sport has best prepared him. It will be won by the guy who has played the most tennis. When I was sixteen I played tennis with three NBA players who were in Abidjan for a conference. They loved their tennis and had played a few years in the off-season. I am a merely competent tennis player who subsequently played 9 or 10 for a moderately successful Division III team. (For those of you unacquainted with American college tennis, that means I didn't play for a team whose best player could not have played for Stanford.) I beat three NBA players almost casually. Was I a better athlete than they? Had my squash experience made me quicker and more co-ordinated than they?
Sharif won the tennis because he had played tennis. Period. End of story. Basta. 'Nuff said. Sharif starts with two wins out of three sports. The tennis guy loses squash to the racketball player and racketball to the squash player. He starts with two losses out of three sports. Period etc...
Ask someone who KNOWS. Mark Twain (did I already mention him?) tells the story of some men accused of gambling illegally who defend themselves by arguing that poker is a game of skill, not of chance. The jury is split among those who think it's skill, and those who think it's luck. They play to determine the answer. Need I say more?
Ciao, Sasha
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DeleteDear Sasha and John,
You make many good points with the exception of addressing the question that James raised and Sharif had answered! We are not disputing that the likes of Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic are not among the Greatest of Racket Athletes - just whether there are enough dimensions in their sport of choice to test their full potential. And the answer is crystal clear.
That question that James was totally irrelevant! He might as well have asked whether he could orbit faster than Halley's Comet? Again, in ANY measurement you cannot compare apples and oranges! The comparisons have to be internally controlled - at the same time, on the same courts, in the same way, of the same vectors/variables/factors if not explicitly then certainly implicitly (such as footwork, racketwork, spatial sense, conditioning, mental toughness, etc.. - and a myriad other things that only those top Racket Athletes would know but e.g. even Neuroscientists would not and vice versa!). This is as close as it gets to a reliable and correct measurement by a vaguely controlled process which eliminates mis-impressions. Those of us who have to do Science for a living know how easily such things can emerge from even the simplest of studies or measurements. The World Championship (Racket Masters) Championship directly met all these criteria and is the only reliable result to date. And the reasons why will come out clearly when we come back to it in the link below and consider the literature from Sports Physiologists assessments of workout intensities (METs indices cals/kg/hr) of Squash and other Sports and why they could not possibly be completely correct! This even with a computerized version of Jonah Barrington's 'Ghosting' designed to capture the arrhythmicity and explosive basal to peak velocities of Squash. Sasha this speaks to your Cross-Country analogy for Ramy versus Rafa etc..
So lets start with asking what Tennis and Squash the 2 main sports under discussion have and do not have (and lets avoid such things as periods and loosely used words like empirical because we know exactly what they mean!).
Tennis is harder to learn. Why? It involves heavy rackets and balls (high momentum i.e. mass x velocity) probably at the limits of Players strengths under the conditions of a Tennis match. It is played on courts (Clay, Grass/dust on the last day of Wimbledon) and Hard) that have low traction unlike Wooden Courts used in other Racket Sports and finally there are no walls to contain the Ball and so they can easily fly off the court.
Squash is easier to learn by simply moving up a beginner closer to the target front wall, has light rackets and balls, walls that contain the ball and wooden floors. So younger beginners can pick it up more easily than Tennis. However, to add a little more complexity, the game itself has 13 surfaces of which the ball can 'spin off' and the players are on the same side of the court, and so the gets and strokes are made in 3D and in a semi-contact sport (learning to teach beginners to see the players and the ball in 360 degree vision is the hardest thing to learn or Coach!). And finally as Squash Players mature as competitors they use the walls as offensive and defensive weapons and not merely for containing the ball on court!
So why are there many more complexities in Squash than in Tennis?
Well the very constraints in Tennis that make it a harder sport to learn (listed above) are the ones restrict improvisation and so the numbers of vectors/factors/variables that can be introduced into the game. Lets start with the court and something that is common to all Racket Sports - stability of footwork/placement of feet that is indispensable to making a good stroke. What is more slipping and falling when you are mis-directed ('wrong footed') by your opponent ends the stroke and ends the rally (Djokovic slipped and fell more than once at the baseline which was more dust than grass in the Wimbledon 2015 final).
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ReplyDeleteWhat else does it do? The hold and mis-direction of the stroke e.g. the Drops that Federer was using in the Wimbledon 2015 designed to Wrongfoot Djokovic do not have to be low tight and close to the net – say within 1' to 2'. Because the grass court (and the same with Clay and Hard Courts) is slippery once he has got, even the World #1 leaning in the wrong direction, that Drop can be 3'-5' wide from the net, as it was from his forehand to Djokovic's backhand. Unlike in Squash! Federer's drops were straight from Squash (whether he knew it or not) and much better than when he played Nadal a couple of years ago. The only reason they stopped working was that Dokovic, the Champion that he is, really elevated pace and tempo (as pointed out by John MacEnroe). Another dimension from Squash was Fedrerer's backhand behind the back (ball was past his body) arching Cross Courts!
What else is tough as nails to learn in Tennis? And may be harder than anything in Squash excepting the 3 wall nick! It is the serve and 'the deep dig' the latter being next to non-existent anywhere excepting (and mystifyingly) from the deep corners of the Tennis Court! I think that everybody accepts that the overhead Serve is technically one of the most demanding strokes in Racket Sports. Although in Squash the serve is generally used to simply put the ball in play it is not devoid of complexity/demands in this department. For example at the TOC the backhand and forehand court serve of the World#17 was repeatedly sliced into the nick (dead!) by an Egyptian Pro (World #?) because the former did not use the wall to cover the service trajectory). But of equal importance is the ability of the top players to return serve by digging out the heavy, high momentum balls from the deep corners with heavy rackets while they are fully extended on slippery surfaces! Squash players do similar things that are far more athletically and gymnastically demanding - but they have the advantage of traction on a wooden court surface!
All this in Tennis adds upto a difficult but narrowly constrained sports in which there are fewer vectors/factors/variables to be mastered than in Squash. Which is why a Wild Card Entry like Goran Ivanesevic can win Wimbledon as he did in 1996 largely based on the single dimension of a good serve! It is also why the high level of athletic maturity, which only arrives in the mid twenties, is not required in Tennis, as shown by the numbers of top Tennis Players who are teenagers – I believe Tracy Austin won the US Open at age 15.
There is no Wildcard who has ever won the British Open in Squash (and given the immobility of the rankings it is unlikely that there ever will be one!). Jansher Khan as far as I recall was the only World Junior and Open Champion in the same year! Most of the top Squash Players mature in their mid twenties and the very top ones can last into their mid 30s - the remarkable exception being Hashim Khan who started at around age 37!
I have done this before but lets do it once again! As this brings us to Squash and its many, many greater dimensions, vectors/variables/factors that have to be mastered before you can get to the top levels! Let alone becoming the legendary Jahangir Khan with 10 British Open and 6 World Championships, 555 wins, no losses over 5years and 8 months and such domination of the top Racket Athletes that he went through a whole tournament without losing a point (as per Guinness Book of World Records)! More than any Racket Athlete in History excepting, Heather McKay with her 16 British Opens, Hockey Championships and World Racketball Championships! And Sasha saying that Racketball and Squash are alike given the differences in pace, bounce, ball and racket size, rules and no rules to name just a few, is like saying that Ice Hockey and Field Hockey are alike!
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ReplyDeleteThe reason that Sharif, Heather McKay and Victor Niederhoffer from Squash dominated Racketball while Marty Hogan (World Champion from Racketball) did not do much in Squash is that there are many more vectors/variables/factors that have to be mastered in Squash than in Racketball! It underscores what the Racket Masters tournament was testing under controlled conditions - how many of the fundamentals when mastered in any one Racket sport elevated the performance or those fundamentals in all other Racket Sports! Which is why Squash emerged as the top sport - and until they repeat this controlled measurement with another result thats the only result that counts!
There are more vectors/variables/factors of a greater dynamic range, diversity and depth that have to be integrated and mastered in Squash than in any other Racket Sport! Why? Lets do the actual analysis, numbers and specific facts starting with Racketwork, Footwork, Movement, Spatial sense (1 part of Court Sense), Conditioning, Mental toughness and the many other things that the World#1 - #5 know (and better than World #6 - #10) and e.g. Neuroscientists might someday figure out if they ever manage to work together!
Lets start with the most obvious dimension - Racketwork and the ball spinning off 13 surfaces (as opposed to 2 in Tennis). Where does the ball land when Ramy Ashour or Qamar Zaman or Thierry Lincou drop it in their own ways - within 10 - 30 cms (4” -1 foot) of the front wall and not 90 - 150 cms (3 - 5 feet) from the front wall (equivalent to the Tennis net). That too mms - cms (0.2-2") above the tin and the court floor and often only after sending their opponents in multiple (Wrong Footed) directions and ending with the ball stuck to the sidewall recovering it requires scraping it off the wall – not quite the return stroke one would look for! Have we counted the numbers of vectors/factors/variables that are being integrated? A few more than in the drop in Tennis? Now lets add something that a lighter racket and ball allows Squash Players, that the Heavier Racket and Ball allows Tennis Players - the Hold and mis-directed stroke inducing a misstep (Wrong Footing as those in the business say it). Federer used this a bit against Djokovic but compared to Zaman, Ramy and Lincou......!? Why don't you write to Geoff Hunt (multiple British Open & Wimbledon Champion) and ask him about his opponent - he'll tell you that to beat him you had to be willing to run 3x more than Qamar Zaman. That is Hunt!! So we don't stay here all night lets just touch on controlling the ball over 4 surfaces (right, front, left walls and edge between the floor and the left wall or vice versa) before hitting a dead nick that Squash Players like Grantley Pinnington can produce well over 95% in the front 1/3 of the court. Doing this he jumped to a 2-0 lead and still lost to Anders Wahlstedt in the US Nationals in 1993, because anders used depth placement pace to keep him out of that zone he liked! Again no single factor makes or breaks the game! Or the innumerable holds, flicks, boasts, drives, lobs, drops, nicks to induce turns, twists, stretches, reaches, jumps, sprints, that Raheil Quereshi or Phil Yarrow used in the US Nationals in 1992 and 1993 to reduce hard hitting Jon Foster and a Harvard#1 Hardball Players from their 2-0 leads to 2-3 losses. An essential part of this tapestry emerges from paraphrasing Dr. Mohammed Ali of Oxford University - 'take all the butterflies out of their legs, you'll find they ain't going to be stinging a thing'! Tell me that this tapestry/net exists in Tennis! We have not even begun to list the sudden directional changes or the amazing control on power, drop, volley, pace, tempo, placement and angles that an Amr Shabana, well past his prime can use to reduce the World#1 Greg Gaultier to an 0-3 loss in the TOC! Or e.g the switch from a deep rail into one corner to send the ball into the opposite corner with a boast. These vectors/variables/factors simply do not exist in Tennis!
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ReplyDeleteWhich brings us to the complement to Racket work - Footwork- the Yin and the Yang of any great match!. It is 'the deep dig' required to recover impossible balls mms - cms above the court floor - only possible on high traction wooden surfaces and not on Grass, Clay or Hard Courts! And what all those previous matches listed above epitomized! The front to back movements, length of rallies, ratios of numbers of great gets and great strokes to the total numbers of strokes per rally (again internally controlled measurements) in a game in which the ball can cover corner to corner diagonals in 0.14 seconds but yet can be at least 10-100 times slower at a basal rate in the drops and lobs! It has a dynamic range of a fraction of that maximum velocity!
How about the sustained sensing of ball and opponent in 3D (except z) in an all court game essential to the 'deep dig'? For example when Rodney Martin played Jahangir Khan in the US Open at the Heights Casino in 1992 or 1993. From the forehand front corner Martin drove 3 successive and perfect cross-courts catching the sidewall in the service box, leaving JK with the sole option of boasting them back. In the 4th JK leapt his feet off the flooor the body parallel to it and used a 2 handed straight drive to laeve Rodney stranded in the corner! The entire audience was on its feet - we all knew that we will not see a deep dig like that one in any Racket Sport again, even though Jahangir lost 1-3! This was before his 10th British Open win.
A top level Squash player has to be a complete Racket Athlete with an All Court game. A single dimension like serve, height, speed, power, strategy tactics, strokes, deep dig which is sufficient in other Racket Sports is not enough!
The problem with Squash is that there are many many more small movements and strokes that add up to making a large difference which are not easily detected and even less easily televised. The deep rails and cross courts exert pressure and are sometimes the only possible return that can be made! The image that persists in the spectators mind is a repetitive unskilled Racket Sport. Until Squash uses modern Science to change this imaging problem drastically, this percption will continue!
And Sasha I am a Scientist. I have to make tough decisions all day - and have done so for decades. So I don't love something inanimate like Squash! Its only a game! Its true that it has given me much, but should the facts change I would have absolutely no hesitation in changing my opinions!
Kind regards,
Ferez
As far as the link on the ineffective assessment of the intensity of Squash goes - scroll down to the section (7e) listing new and old papers on Squash, Heart Attacks, and other Sports.
http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/2015/05/10/a-patients-perspective-on-open-heart-surgery-from-diagnosis-and-intervention-to-recovery/
I agreed with the point that Tennis is technically difficult from squash; as both the games are completely different from each other; only the format of playing is quite matching but rules and regulations are completely different from each other. We can get some essential tips from this article while compare the difference in between tennis and squash. Thanks for such a wonderful article.
ReplyDeleteTennis court construction
Dear Rick,
DeleteWe agree on some points but I am afraid we mostly disagree!I am glad both games exist - in their own ways they are equally great sports! However, for different reasons. And confusing the term 'technically difficult' without clearly understanding and defining it as Sasha and many seem to be doing, (for anything that means something), is unhelpful to either sport. As I made clear the heavy rackets, high momentum(heavy) balls and slippery (low traction) grass, clay and hard court surfaces place greater physical constraints on tennis that makes it a difficult game. But precisely because of these limitations there are fewer things (vectors, variables, factors that have to be integrated) in tennis than in squash! Conversely the light rackets, balls, walls (13 surfaces in squash versus 2 in tennis that the ball spins off) allows the introduction of 'holds' and mis-directions in strokes, which induces 'wrong footing' in squash. Because of the high traction of the wooden surfaces squash players can recover balls from great strokes 'with deep digs'. These recoveries are missing in tennis which is played on from on slippery surfaces. A great stroke usually equals the end of a rally in tennis! In squash the lighter rackets and balls means many more 'holds' mis-directions, etc..to induce more wrong footing - the density and range of strokes is much higher in squash than in tennis!! But because of the higher traction of the wooden court floors, the wrong footed Squash Player can recover impossible balls (mms above the floor or stuck to the walls) from the greatest of great strokes to put even more pressure on the stroke maker! Who tries to make the stroke better only to make an unforced error. So the Yin and the Yang of the great Stroke and the equally great 'Get' is much higher in Squash than in Tennis!! Tennis is more Hot Rod than F1 or Motor Cycle racing and squash is more the latter! Imbuing visually graphic processes of a sport with a greater significance in Racket Athleticism or Technical Proficiency than exists, with artificial terms, is superficial, inflationary and denigrating to the greatness of its athletes! Although we disagree on our understanding of the nature of the 2 sports they are equally important to Society in general and the Sports World in particular! Much like Men's and Women's Sports or Mothers and Fathers or Science and Religion!
Kind regards,
Ferez
I am aware that there are several typographical errors in my responses. These occur because of the nature of the entry of the document into the reply boxes. Please pardon this oversight we will list them at some point in the future.
ReplyDeleteExcellent article. Very interesting to read. I really love to read such a nice article. Thanks! keep rocking. racquetball racquet
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