By Duncan Riddell
(For more long form opinion pieces written by Duncan, visit his Substack 'The Nick')
Over the summer, Member Federations of World Squash voted unanimously to update the Rules of Squash. The new rules, which went into effect on September 1st, aim to encourage continuous play ahead of squash’s Olympics debut.
“The traditional guiding principles of fairness and safety now need to consider other factors such as fan engagement and broadcast,” Zena Wooldridge, President of World Squash, said after the meeting. She was in this case speaking primarily—but not exclusively—about a new diving rule that takes away a diving player’s right to stop a rally.
But perhaps the most subtle—and potentially consequential—change can be found in the ‘interference’ section, where there is no longer a stipulation that a player must have ‘unobstructed’ and ‘direct’ access to the ball when attempting a return of shot. The justification is that such terms were a contradiction of other rules that allow for ‘minimal interference,’ and that the previous terminology limited the adaptability of a player's movement around the court.
This begs the question: by removing language related to clearance, has World Squash lowered the bar for what counts as minimal interference, that frustratingly vague term? At the China Open, during the women’s semi-final, at 8-all in the second game, Satomi Watanabe was given a ‘no let’ after Amina Orfi hit a loose ball that was travelling into the middle of the court.
Orfi did not clear from Watanabe’s path; indeed, she shuffled slightly into it.
“That is a massive stroke,” Vanessa Atkinson said from the commentary box, amazed that Watanabe, not Orfi, had been penalised. “That is absolute nonsense.”
Simon Parke agreed. “What is that no let encouraging there? [Players are] not going to clear as much, are they?”
Cherry picking dubious calls is easy, but in fairness you could pick a random match at any recent tournament and find at least one example (more likely a handful) of a player being penalised for not pushing through traffic to get to the ball.
No let calls like this are nothing new, but they’re becoming increasingly conspicuous. Thanks to modern training, athletes are faster than ever, and every player on tour knows their opponent can get nearly anything. Accordingly, blocking has become more subtle and sophisticated.
Let’s acknowledge a near impossible task: judging whether the striker could have made a good return, or has taken the correct line to a ball travelling up to 166 miles per hour, or whether minimal interference was intentional or not is extremely difficult. Not least because referees—the vast majority of whom aren’t former players—often underestimate players’ speed. But the new rules seem to put the onus on the striker to push through interference, rather than the non-striker to clear. This might make decisions for the referee easier, but does it make the game fairer? And does the revised wording have the effect of decreasing the number of stoppages—or the opposite?
“The ‘direct and unobstructed’ rule change has been raised several times as a concern,” US Squash referee Steve Johnston told me. But for him, “the removal of those words is a very small change, and access to the ball still requires the same fundamentals of clearing by an outgoing player, along with effort from the incoming player.”
That’s refreshing from a referee’s perspective. However, I’m not sure if that’s a universal view, and at any rate the symbolic impact matters. Removing 'direct and unobstructed,' rather than strengthening clearing requirements, risks signalling to players that standing in an opponent's path—as long as it's 'minimal'—is acceptable gamesmanship.
“When you go on court you’re going to [need] weapons,” Mohamad El Shorbagy said in the recent SquashTV documentary The Raging Bull about Mostafa Asal. “One of these weapons is blocking, because it's part of the sport, and sometimes it's a huge part of the sport. And if you're missing one weapon, you might lose."
The best squash matches are those where such considerations are not front of mind, or even relevant—where tactical intelligence, shot making, and athleticism are on rapturous display.
So, how to limit the blast radius of blocking?
A case study already exists. During the final at the Egyptian Open this September, Mostafa Asal was penalised harshly for obvious blocking. He received 9 strokes against him for interference alone, including two conduct strokes. (He was also slapped with a fine.) He has since largely cleaned up his act. At the U.S. Open, he received a single stroke against him for interference. He beat Paul Coll decisively, 3-0.
If more minimal interference were penalised more harshly— if referees erred on the side of trusting a striker’s considerable athleticism to reach seemingly impossible balls—we might see a period of over-correction. Innocent traffic punished, some un-gettable balls deemed gettable.
But on the other side, we’d likely see more non-strikers clearing better, as we've seen with Asal recently. Not only would this give World Squash its wish for seamless play, it would also give us all a more equitable game.
Think of how many times you've heard a player plead to the ref: “I can get that”—or heard commentators marvel at an impressive return, “I can't believe they got that!”
Let’s start believing them.
