Sunday, December 30, 2012

Resolved!


This year I’m determined to better my squash game by focusing on the following:

  1. Be much more aggressive cutting off loose lobs and going for the front-court drop-shot. I’m 6’ 4”, for Christ sake, what the hell am I doing letting so many lazy shots float by me to take off the back wall? Can someone please answer me that?
  2. I resolve to hit many more rail shots, and when I do hit a cross court, make sure it is wide and long, thereby reducing the opportunity for my opponent to hit a lazy shot out from the wall, as in #1, above. 
  3. I resolve to hold as many of my shots as I can. Sometimes the rail shot -- which I will be hitting more of, as per #2 above -- can be surprising if you hold and show the more typical cross-court. Try to make the opponent think, and double-think. 
  4. I resolve to think about every shot, as in #3, and not just hit an automatic response. I vividly remember a match I played at the University Club in NY several years ago. It was a quarter-final in the Bs, which, since there were about 90 contestants, was a victory in itself. My opponent and I were very closely matched, with the match see-sawing back and forth. I remember thinking really well that day, and one thing I did was I always hit a certain shot when put in a particular position. Every time I was stuck way in the backhand side with only a little room to hit the ball off the back wall, I would loft it up and hit it back deep on the backhand side. Every time that scenario came up, I had the same response. In the fifth game, I noticed my opponent was anticipating this shot and edging over just as I was hitting it. Next time the scenario played out, I waited and waited as the ball dropped off the back wall, and then hit a drop to the right front wall that had the guy flat-footed. I won by a whisker (that was as far as I got in that tournament), but remember in the shower afterward thinking that I had done so much cogitating out on the court that my head hurt! It was, in truth, a wonderful feeling. 

I resolve to have more squash-induced headaches, of the good kind, in 2013.


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