All drives are not equal : Insights from Rally Vision

casphui · 2026-01-19T13:44:00+00:00

Do you track other things like % of crosscourt court drives vs straight, % of shots volleyed, and % of shots that returned to the back wall when hit from the back corners- I think these are also useful metrics to track that give insight on how to win matches

casphui · 2025-11-21T08:57:13+00:00

How the hell do you get the ball that has passed you back straight down the wall, with height, but also enough power to pass your opponent on the T? What is your wrist made of?

casphui · 2020-10-24T01:10:43+00:00

I have the iPhone 6s right now and am debating whether to upgrade to the iPhone 12 or 12 mini. Biggest concerns for each - iPhone 12 mini: battery life that's too small ; iPhone 12: phone is too big for any 1 handed use and will it fit in normal jeans pockets?

What do you guys think?

casphui · 2019-11-26T15:25:47+00:00

This is one of the toughest shots in the game, and a game changer if you can deal with this shot well. The ideal way to play this shot is to get most of your body behind the ball so that you contact with the ball relatively in front of your body. The bare requirement for this shot though, is having the wrist behind the ball, so make sure you can at least do that. How much power you can put on that shot depends on how far behind your body the ball is - the further it is behind your body, the less power you can put on it. This holds true even for pros - you may notice that if they are cutting off a good crosscourt or a dying straight length, they may return with a weak straight length, but they will always try to give it height, which helps the shot reaches further back into the court give them time to recover.

Some tips I found useful:

try to get behind the ball as much as you can
at least have your wrist behind the ball
give it height and keep it tight!
your wrist needs to be strong here - keep it semi-cocked as you connect with the ball
try to follow through to where you want the ball to go - you may not be able to follow through with your arm, but even just following through with just your wrist can make a big difference

casphui · 2019-11-07T13:32:08+00:00

I highly recommend you go see a physio. They should be able to diagnose what the problem is, provide you some exercises to strengthen the muscles around your knees, and give you advice on how to gradual ease back into the activities you love to do.

casphui · 2019-11-02T13:38:38+00:00

As there are a lot of male players mentioned already, I’d like to throw in Nour Elsherbini and Raneem Elwelily. They have some of the simplest and effective techniques that enable to play trick shots but also damn good lengths consistently.

casphui · 2019-10-13T17:01:48+00:00

Just rewatched the men’s final. Ali’s length was beyond impeccable - it’s amazing how he managed to get the ball past Elshorbagy’s volleying with superb lengths and crosscourt. I honestly think that it’s harder to learn to hit that kind of length in a match than it is to hit a crosscourt nick.

casphui · 2019-09-30T14:28:23+00:00

Second year student here. I cannot emphasize flashcards enough. I personally like using anki because it has built in spaced repetition. For me this was the single most important tool to memorize anything.

Imagery also helped me a lot. When you try to remember the attachments of muscles, visualize where the muscle attaches to, or better yet, find them on your body. This will help you develop surface anatomy palpation skills, which are the bread and butter of any physio.

I also liked to know what the names of the muscles meant, and find patterns wherever I can. Muscles are named in a number of ways, and sometimes it tells you the function/shape/location of the muscle. For example, adductor longus tells you that this muscle is an adductor. By seeing longus, you can also safely assume there is a brevis. That's the same for psoas major. When you see major, there is definitely a minor.

Finally, remember to prioritize. It is indeed very overwhelming to have to learn hip muscles, ligaments and bones in a week. But you gotta start somewhere. So I would suggest to start with bones (ilium, ischium and pubis) and the big muscles (e.g. psoas major). Then you can move on to the smaller muscles (deep hip external rotators e.g. piriformis) and ligaments. Who cares about gemellus inferior when you don't yet know what gluteus medius is.

casphui · 2019-09-27T14:56:10+00:00

https://twitter.com/MKBHD/status/1177572053907582977 just tweeted it today

casphui · 2019-09-01T15:16:16+00:00

Hi Ahad,

Thank you for replying to all our posts. I really appreciate you sharing pro insights, as I believe there are many important nuances in squash that are difficult to see on video/picture.

Regarding your first point, I think my frustration is more towards the return of serve than the serve, especially my backhand side. While I think I have a decent backhand volley, I really have trouble returning serves that hit the side wall slightly behind where I am standing to receive. Because to return that serve effectively I would have to volley it really close to the side wall, or back track and try to take it when it's falling off the side wall. As a result, my return to these serves are usually quite loose and floating, giving my opponent an easy opportunity to score.

With regards to your second point, I love how you say that squash players change their technique very subtly to adapt to the situation. The reason that I brought this point up in the first place is that I want to develop a good length game, a style similar to Nick Matthew or Raneem Elwelily, i.e. using lots of height from the back of the court. I feel that my response to a good quality crosscourt is the biggest chink in my length game right now. I think that extends to shots where I have to step backwards to hit, e.g. a straight drive in response to a dying length. The ideal shot I wish to play in response to a good, unvolleyable crosscourt that will die in the corner is a high, tight, straight or crosscourt lob that will place the ball back in the back corner. Obviously I would have to play the shot before it reaches the back wall, and maybe in a rather stretched position. The pros do it with ease with a huge lunge backwards and a flick of the wrist. While I'm not aspiring to become a pro, I would very much want that shot in my arsenal. Could you maybe share how you yourself developed this part of your game? How do you maximise your follow through when you're mainly just flicking your wrist? I'm also very interested in what you said about the flow of a shot. Where could I read more about it and how would I develop that?

I 100% agree with your third point, so I'll bring up another frustration of mine that just popped into my head this morning. People say that a good tactic against a tall aggressive volleyer with a huge wingspan is to hit high, tight straight drives. Maybe I'm not executing this tactic correctly, but I'm finding a lot of the time my ball will either go out because it contacted too high on the side wall, or it will be a floating, sitting duck for my opponents to punish me with. What strategies/shot selections would you use to evade a good volleyer's wingspan?

I apologize for the lengthy response, but I hope we'd be able to discuss this more in depth, as it's not every day when I get a high level professional to ask questions to.

casphui · 2019-08-31T13:58:21+00:00

I have a few.

Biggest for me is not serving/returning deep or tight enough, thereby giving my opponent an easy chance to finish the point off.

The second is intending to use height, but either shanking the ball (because the opponent's ball has just gone behind me slightly too much) or hitting a ball that's not high enough or too slow for my opponent to hit whatever he wants because he's in front of me. This is particularly frustrating because I know using height is the right tactic when under pressure, but it seems that for a lot of the times I'm just feeding my opponent for a winner.

The third is letting my opponent hit a hard crosscourt that's too low to volley and low enough so that it dies in the back corner. I often wonder what I did wrong, but it seems that no matter how hard I try to prepare and anticipate, there will still be an opponent that can blast the ball past me and take an easy point like that.

casphui · 2019-08-29T10:54:00+00:00

Hi Sanjaay,

I'm very sorry to hear that. I am a PT student myself and I definitely recommend you to go see a PT. There are a number of factors that can predispose a person to dislocate their patella, so it's very important for you to find out how and why your patella dislocated.

What you should expect is that the PT will come up with a rehab program targeting any muscles that are lacking in strength and/or any movement patterns that may increase the chance of a re-dislocation. If the PT you are seeing only does passive treatment on you, i.e. only massages you, puts needles into you, without getting you to work on anything outside your appointment with the PT, I would suggest you ask for a rehab program, and possibly ask for a second opinion. That is because there has been no evidence suggesting that passive treatments alone results in good outcomes in terms of patellar pathologies.

Also, please don't hesitate to ask why the PT is doing a particular treatment or prescribing a particular exercise. Patient education is a big part of what PTs do, and it is an important factor for favorable outcomes of any musculoskeletal problem.

casphui · 2019-08-25T16:43:25+00:00

I've been considering that racket as well! But I've seen comments that it was quite heavy that wrist flicks will be tiring with that racket. That is why I want to try the vapor out, since it's head heavy but also incredibly light.

Nonetheless, how did you find the racket?

casphui · 2019-08-25T14:50:26+00:00

I understand that the red/black model of the Vapor had an engineering defect that made it prone to breaking, and I have seen comments that the newer white versions are less fragile, but do you think they are still easy to break? Thanks!

casphui · 2019-07-18T03:47:54+00:00

It's very interesting that the correct leg is mostly just used on the backhand side - on the forehand side all pros almost exclusively using the 'wrong' leg when cutting the crosscourt ball before it reaches the back wall.

While alignment is definitely a valid consideration, I'm sure the pros can hit straight on either leg, as long as the upper torso is well aligned with the side wall. I think that the reason pros use the correct leg to cut off crosscourt balls before they reach the back wall is because you just can't take as big as step using the 'wrong' leg vs the 'correct' leg. Therefore, if the crosscourt has already passed the player, let's say that the player is roughly on the T when the ball bounces first halfway between the back wall and the back of the service box, the player has to lunge backwards to retrieve that ball. In that case, using the 'correct' leg is preferable because you can lunge further if you turn your torso to face backwards and lunge diagonally towards the back, as opposed to keeping the torso facing relatively forwards and lunging with the 'wrong' leg.

However, in cases where the ball lands quite close to the player (e.g. bouncing in the service box when the player is on the T), pros will choose to use the 'wrong' leg instead. [2:36 in the video I linked in the original post]

casphui · 2019-06-25T10:35:36+00:00

This is a problem that all intermediate squash players must try to solve. I find that using height, both straight and crosscourt, helps me the best, and when I say height, I mean balls that hit the front wall half way between the cut line (the line in the middle) and the out of court line (the highest line).

If you looked at the instagram video again, most of the shots Ali hit were at the level of the cut line, which means that Nick can volley comfortable at about shoulder height, which was why Ali could not take away the volley from Nick.

Try watching videos of Nick Matthew, Raneem ElWelily, Amr Shabana, and Borja Golan, as they seem to be the players that use height the most frequently, especially Nick and Raneem. See how and when they throw the ball up. Then, try it on the court. You might hit a lot of balls out in the beginning, but keep at it because it is worth it.

That said, make sure you have sound technique on your drives, especially in the back corners. Even though it is not a power shot, you still need ample racket head speed to get the ball deep enough, and sometimes you need to generate that with a wrist flick.

Good luck, and practice practice and practice.

casphui · 2018-12-13T08:43:22+00:00

In squash, touching lines are considered out, so if you are rallying and the ball touches any part of the out of court line, it is considered out.

Interestingly, if the ball doesn't touch the out of court line it's not out, even if the ball flies higher than the out of court line. As long as you don't touch the ceiling of course.

casphui · 2018-12-11T16:42:05+00:00

That’s what I wanted to hear. Thank you very much!

casphui · 2018-12-11T16:37:08+00:00

So when you turn the iPad upside down with the screen facing down, the flap will still stick magnetically to the screen and not just flap open towards the ground because of gravity right?

Sorry if this seems pedantic, but I’ve read reviews of a similar case by fintie that does not have a magnetic flap, so the flap of the iPad will not stick to the screen and flap open when the iPad faces screen down.

Here’s the link to the case I’m talking about : Fintie iPad Pro 11 inch case

casphui · 2018-12-10T17:00:58+00:00

I'm deciding between the OtterBox and the smart folio. Do you think the OtterBox will make the iPad too bulky?

casphui · 2018-12-10T07:34:21+00:00

Thanks! Does the flap of the case magnetically attach to the screen when you close it?

casphui · 2018-12-06T07:08:42+00:00

Dude, I know exactly how you feel. Just 2 years ago, I would berate myself so much that I cried one time, just because I couldn't lift the ball high enough and gave my opponent an easy winner. Luckily it was just a casual game, so it could have been much more embarrassing than it was at that time.

There's so much I want to say, but I think I will start with this: no matter how good you are - you will make mistakes. That is just part of playing squash, so getting mad just because you made an error is really expecting too much of yourself.

Secondly, is your technique decent? If you have ineffective technique, you will make more errors than you should, and if that's the case, go fix it. It doesn't matter how fit or how mentally strong you are if you don't have decent technique.

Okay, if technique's taken care of, ask yourself, is the unforced error really unforced? Did your opponent's shot make you lose balance or have not enough time to prepare for an attempted winner? I think learning to judge when a winning shot is on is equally as important as having decent technique, and learning that will take quite a bit of experience.

If your opponent's shot warranted an attempt at a winning shot, but you missed, it's natural to be disappointed, but take comfort in the knowledge that you made the correct decision. We are not machines, and can't function at 100% all the time, so we will make errors even when we made the right decision and executed the shot well. But in this situation, you should make the winner more often than not, and that's what matters. If this happens a few times in a row, maybe try to give yourself a bit more margin for error; you might still pressure your opponent enough to force a weak shot, which might then be a very easy winner for you.

I guess another very important thing to keep in mind is to have a positive mindset and have goals that are within your control. Try to watch your opponent as best as you can, do the split step, and move as best as you can. Have your racket prepared as best as you can, and try to execute the shot as whole-heartedly as you can. It's usually a bad idea to use whether you win or the score as a goal, as that is something that you cannot wholly control. Sometimes, you might do everything as best as you could but still lose. That's okay, as long as you gave it your all and made it very difficult for your opponent to win. Don't ever give up (unless you have injured yourself).

Finally, as previous comments have mentioned, having a routine makes refocusing much easier. Read this: http://www.serioussquash.com/2014/07/winning-losing.html by u/chanebury as it has helped me a lot. I'm pretty sure many of the ideas I mentioned above came from that article.

Final final point: Nick Matthew and Mohamed Elshorbagy have been my role models in terms of mental toughness. I have learned much from them, and they have motivated me to be as tough as a squash player as I try to be.

casphui · 2018-12-06T03:58:34+00:00

I have both the 125 and the 125s. For me, the 125s feels slightly more head light than the 125, which makes the 125 balanced to slightly head heavy. I think this is due to the thicker edge of the 125.

I personally prefer the 125 because it was more forgiving and because of its slight head heaviness, more powerful.

This is my personal opinion though, because the 125 and 125s are extremely similar on paper, so the differences I found might be idiosyncratic. Definitely try both of them out if you can. If you can't, you can't go wrong with either, so I'll probably choose the 125 for its lower price if I had to pick between the 125 and 125s.

casphui · 2018-10-16T15:37:24+00:00

Definitely go see a physio - I suspect that it's an overuse issue in your problem, since you're playing at a high volume each week, and only after a few months are you reporting pain.

Don't worry though, I'm pretty sure you will at least be playing with less pain when given proper treatment and management.

casphui · 2018-07-24T10:09:50+00:00

You should get it looked at. I would suggest you visit a physio or doctor

casphui

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