THE EFFECT OF COURT LOCATION AND AVAILABLE TIME ON THE TACTICAL SHOT SELECTION OF ELITE SQUASH PLAYERS

No previous research in squash has considered the time between shots or the proximity of the ball to a wall, which are two important variables that influence shot outcomes. The aim of this paper was to analyse shot types to determine the extent to which they are played in different court areas and a more detailed analysis to determine whether the time available had an influence on the shot selected. Ten elite matches, contested by fifteen of the world's top right handed squash players (age 27 ± 3.2, height 1.81 ± 0.06 m, weight 76.3 ± 3.7 kg), at the men's World Team Championships were processed using the SAGIT/Squash tracking system with shot information manually added to the system. Results suggested that shot responses were dependent upon court location and the time between shots. When these factors were considered repeatable performance existed to the extent that one of two shots was typically played when there was limited time to play the shot (< 1.20s). For example, it was clear that when players did not have a lot of time to hit the ball (low time i.e. < 1.06s, and mid time i.e. 1.06 - 1.20s) in the front left corner close to the side wall, the crosscourt lob was used frequently (44.30% and 36.31% respectively) whereas when there was more time this shot was seldom used (13.64%). Consequently variant and invariant behaviour were shown to exist in elite squash although for the first time it was suggested that the availability of time to play a shot contributed to which of these behaviours was evident. This analysis could be extended by adopting a case study approach to see how individual differences in strategy and tactics affect shot selection