John Musto Squash

In both the movie versions and the documentary on the 1980 US Hockey team, coach Herb Brooks keeps telling his players to “Play your game” as they are holding on to a 4-3 advantage with 10 minutes to go in the 3rd period. Don’t focus on the other guys – focus on what you are doing.

I started my semifinal match today feeling good.  I hit the ball well during warm-up, and I felt lots of energy and was ready to play at a high level of intensity. But when the match started my opponent hit 3 straight dead nicks from crazy positions. I was either playing Ramy Ashour and I was in big trouble or this barrage of nicks couldn’t possibly be sustainable.  In either case, the only answer is to Play Your Game.  Against Ramy I will lose with honor and against mortals I have a shot at winning.

I remember plenty of matches in the past where I did it the wrong way. I was so overly concerned with the strength of my opponent that instead of playing a strategically disciplined game and giving myself a real shot at winning, I took sloppy shortcuts and went for shots out of desperation rather than from a dominant position.

Today, however, I stuck to my guns and played my game and won 11-5, 11-1, 11-4.  So tomorrow I play in the finals of the Italian 45+ Championships. I am excited but aware that my opponent is a very dangerous player and I will need to play my game again tomorrow no matter what happens.

When you play a tournament one of the hardest things to do is to wait until you play. Until you play, the tournament is only in your head and it is so easy to let our mind race ahead with all sorts of truly meaningless thoughts about matches in the later rounds or anticipation about how well you will play. I find it helpful to not hang around the tournament site when I am not playing, and ideally go and do something that has nothing to do with squash. In this way your mind stays fresh for squash and you also remind yourself that there is a lot of life out there that has nothing to do with the tournament.

I played my quarterfinal match this morning and played well – I won 11-3, 11-3, 11-1. Afterwards we got away and took a walk through Old Town Bari and had an incredible lunch.  It was so relaxing and now I am on my way over to play my semifinal match. I feel good and am excited to play.

I got a bye in the first round as the top seed so I don’t play until tomorrow morning at 11am. I never really like being seeded first as I prefer to go under the radar, but when you get seeded first you just have to deal with the fact that you will not go unnoticed. Being first before a tournament means nothing. Being first afterwards is the goal.

I went to the Bari Squash Center yesterday and today for a practice hit. The Club is a fantastic Squash Club. Dino, the owner, runs a tight ship. Everything is perfectly clean, in   precise position and he is a gracious host. Within 5 minutes he had presented me with not one but two Bari Squash Center shirts and made me feel very much at home.

There are 6 courts, a fitness center, men’s and women’s lockers and showers, a pro shop, and a espresso bar (obligatory in Italy). The walls are covered with squash memorabilia – photos of Dino with various squash stars of the past and present, tournament posters signed by all the players, Italy team photos, and draws from past tournaments played at the center.

My favorite moment of the evening, however, was when a lady named Elena approached me and said – are you John the American? I have something for you! She went away and came back with three shirts from Squash Roma, the Club I am representing at the tournament, for me to wear. I look forward to wearing one in my match tomorrow morning.

Italian 45+ Championships draw

Bari Squash Center courts

In high school my history teacher was also the crew coach. One class he started off the class talking about sports and how it was important to have rituals. Most in the class weren’t athletes so he turned to me and said – John – when you play squash do you have any rituals? And I responded that yes, I like to start my warmup on the backhand side. He responded to me (and to the class) – so if you started out on the forehand side you wouldn’t win, right? I didn’t want to contradict him publicly so I said yes, but I strongly disagreed. There is a big difference between habit, or ritual, and superstition.

Many athletes have superstitions that they follow very closely every time they are going to compete. They actually start to believe that the motions that they go through have a power of their own, and if they don’t adhere to the correct order of movements then there will be negative consequences.

At a young age I recognized that these athletes were allowing thoughts to control them. But a true champion is their own person and is ready to adapt to any environment and any circumstance. They would never let an arbitrarily chosen set of movements determine their destiny.

I do have habits that are born out of experience. I do like to start out warming up on the backhand side because it is an easier movement on my body and as I am warming up I am less likely to twinge something. But every so often I start on the forehand side just to prove to myself that it is only a habit – not a superstition.

When you travel to play you have less control over your environment. I am in Bari, Italy right now about to play in the Italian National Championships (45+), and there are so many things that I normally do to prepare for a match in New York that I am not able to do here. It would be easy to start coming up with excuses as to why I didn’t perform as well as I could have, but that would be the easy way out. Instead, I am reminded of what I consider to be one of the greatest accomplishments in squash – in 1985, Jahangir Khan won the British Open, jumped on a plane to NYC, and the next day started the North American Open with the hardball and won that too. I am quite sure he was not planning his excuses, but instead was focused on what he needed to do to accomplish his goal. If Jahangir had been beholden to superstitions I am quite sure he would not have been able to accomplish this.

So I head out, with Jahangir as inspiration, determined not to compile excuses, but instead to focus on what it will take to accomplish my goal.

Last night I played a league match against a good player who just graduated from college. It was a tough match, and afterwards we chatted for a while about his game and I was reminded of many similar conversations I have have had with recent grads about their squash games.  The most common complaint from recent grads is about a lack of stamina, and how if they only had their “college” fitness back they would have done better.  But unless you are playing squash full time, your “college” fitness isn’t coming back, and not only do you need to adjust your game to this new reality, but in the process of doing so you can actually become a much better player.

College squash players, for the most part, are coached to get in as good shape as possible, to hit good rails and cross courts, and to not hit the tin.  The top players are left mostly untouched and are free to play great squash, but for the others it is run, hit hard, and don’t hit the tin.  There are many reasons for this, and while there are many excellent college coaches, a calculation is made that by coaching to the lowest common denominator the team will perform overall at its best.  I have no doubt this is true as the coaches want to win and they are coaching based on what history tells them wins.

But when these players graduate, get a job, and can’t maintain their fitness, there isn’t much of a game there to fall back on.

Here are a few tips for college grads who are frustrated with the state of their game:

1) Learn how and when to hit drop shots.  This has been a pretty much ignored part of your game, and you either push at the drop or slice down on it dropping your racquet head.  Instead, focus on your alignment, shorten your stroke a bit,  and find the spot within your stroke that allows you to swing through the ball and keep your racquet head up.  Use your rails and cross courts to create dominant position in the court and attack with the drop from in front of your opponent.

2) Learn to move efficiently.  Right now you probably use tremendous energy moving to the ball and push back with your leg to get back to the T.  If you have endless energy you can sustain this.  But all that excess energy is in the past.  Instead, split step when your opponent strike the ball so that you are in balance as you initiate your movement, and use the turn of your front shoulder to harness your momentum to bring you right back to the T after your shot.

3) Make your opponent do the work.  Stop taking pride in your ability to get every ball back, and instead develop the mindset of making your opponent have to run to get every ball back. Keep track of how much energy you are expending compared to how much your opponent is expending and make sure your burn rate is 2-3 times more efficient.  The key is to use your rails and cross courts to create dominant position for  your attacks and to ensure your shots don’t give your opponent a quick attacking opportunity.

4) Don’t complain about being out of shape.  You can’t possibly be that out of shape if you just graduated.  And complaining just maintains the mindset of chase and hit.  And when you play someone twice your age, they just won’t have that much sympathy.

A week from today I arrive in Italy to play in the 45+ division of the Italian National Championships.  Aside from the obvious anticipation of great food, cappuccinos and wine (well, after the tournament), I am most focused on one thing – quickly getting over jet lag.

Playing squash when jet lagged feels a lot like playing squash while being drugged.  The feet don’t move, the brain thinks very slowly, and all you really want to do is lie down and sleep.  If I have any intentions of doing well in this tournament, and I definitely have those intentions, I had better get over jet lag quickly.

Over the years I have learned from trial and error how best to make this time adjustment, and here are my tips that I will be following:

1) Get to the tournament time zone as far in advance as possible.  I don’t have the luxury of giving myself a week to adjust, and I know that I am cutting it close arriving on Wednesday and starting play on Friday.  Ideally I would have given myself more time, but that wasn’t a possibility.  I think I will have enough time.

2) Wake up early for three days ahead of the trip.  I plan to get myself up at increasing earlier times for 3 days before I leave. Waking up at 5am NY time is like waking up at 11am Italy time.  I usually wake up at 7am, so I plan to wake up at 6am on Sunday, 5am on Monday, and 4am on Tuesday.  Getting to bed early is the tougher part, but I should be so tired from waking up easy that I will fall asleep easily.

3) Eat before getting on the plane, and don’t watch movies.  Ideally I will sleep the entire flight to Rome.  If I wake up Tuesday morning at 4am, and eat before getting on the plane, sleeping should not be difficult.  Hopefully it will be a smooth flight!

4) Don’t take a nap when you arrive.  Stay awake the entire day so that you sleep soundly at night.  The first day is crucial.  If you nap when you arrive you will make the transition infinitely harder.  I plan to enjoy several cappuccinos and fall asleep around 9pm the first night.

5) Exercise the day you arrive.  I have courts booked for the first two days I am there. Forcing yourself to exercise instead of nap is somewhat painful but pays off.  Aside from getting some practice in, it gets the blood flowing during the day keeping you awake and helps you sleep better at night.

That’s my plan.  If I can get through my Friday match I think I will be fine for the rest of the tournament.  I’ll let you know how it goes . . .

10.  The Grand Open.  One of the most competitive draws in the country outside of the Nationals, and comes with first round TOC tickets.  Extremely well run tournament.

9.  Pro players practicing at your Club.  All week.  Perhaps the only thing more impressive than watching the pros play on the all-glass court is watching them do drills at your home Club.  You never really knew how perfectly the drill could be done until you watched them go at it.  Hypnotizing.  The cross-court drop can always nick on the crosscourt-straight drop/crosscourt-straight drop drill?

8. A former number one in the world having a game at your Club.  In 5 seconds I knew he was world class, and five seconds later I realized that was Lee Beachill, former world #1, having a game at my Club.

7.  Qualifiers at local Clubs.  As great as the all-glass court is, seeing top-30 players go at it up close is even more exciting.  You see the spin, hear all the noises, and see hungry qualifiers fight to the death.

6.  Seeing the glass court go up in Grand Central.  The inspired idea of having the TOC in Grand Central never gets old.  Watching them put up the court and knowing that the greatest week is right in front of you is as good as it gets.

5. Watching an American go for it in round 1.  This year it was Todd Harrity going against the world #4.  The crowd went crazy, especially for the tie-break second game.  Next year he’ll make it past the first round.

4. Seeing people watch squash for the first time.  The glass front wall is open to all passers-by.  And seeing newcomers transfixed gives you hope for the future of pro squash.

3. Seeing an all-time great recreate the past, beat the world #1 11-9 in the 5^th, then beat the world’s #5 and #2 in succession to reclaim the title he won twice many years ago.

2.  Seeing one of the three greatest women to ever play the game finally come to Grand Central and win the title without dropping a game.  As charming and affable as she is off the court, she is a killer on it.

1.  Hanging at the TOC bar, watching the squash on the high-def TVs, enjoying a Palm beer (or two), and seeing virtually every squash friend you have ever known.  Not a bad way to spend a week.

Serving in squash is most often thought of as getting just the ball in play.  If I win the racquet spin I sometimes (only half jokingly) consider to elect to receive rather than take the serve.  So few opponents force me to be defensive with my return that it creates a great attacking opportunity right off the start.  But it doesn’t have to be that way.  So what should you do with your serve?

Objective of the serve

First of all we need to consider what the goal of the serve is.  Simply put, it is to start out the point by giving you, the server, superior position in the court with your opponent in the back corner and you at the T ready to attack.  In order to do that, you want to prevent your opponent from taking the ball early, and forcing them, when they do hit the ball, to take it from the back corner where a clean rail or cross court is more difficult.  You are trying to force a boast or at best a loose rail or cross-court.  Here’s how to do it:

3 Keys to a good serve

1) Make your serve a “line drive” that does not at any point go above the side “out” line. Make contact with the ball at about head height and hit it at a medium to medium hard pace.

2) Aim to have the ball hit the side wall at exactly the spot where your opponent would want to volley the ball.  Watch where your opponent stands to receive the ball, and notice their body language.  Almost all players give signals as to where they are looking to take the ball.

3) Ensure that the ball does not hit the back wall off the fly.  The ideal first bounce is about a foot from the back wall. Manage the depth of the serve with a combination of ideal height and speed.

Backhand serves

I am often asked whether to hit “forehand” side serves with the backhand.  The answer is yes. There are three good reasons:

1) You can see your opponent while serving, allowing you to adjust the spot on the side wall based on your opponent’s body language or actual movement.

2) The angle of the serve is smaller meaning that it stays close to the side wall for a longer period of time making it harder to volley.

3) You are a step closer to the T, so you will be ready faster for your opponent’s return.
Additionally, for newer players it gives additional practice hitting backhand volleys, often the hardest shot for new players to learn.

Lob Serves

Should you hit a lob serve?  I should mention that there are some players who are very proud of their lob serve.  I love playing players who love their lob serve.  I have never played one of these players whose serve did not give out at crucial moments.  And returning a lob serve, even a good one, is not that hard if done correctly (a future post!).  In my mind a lob serve is just not worth the risk of outright losing the point with an “out” serve.

Tips for beginners

For those beginners having a tough time simply making contact or getting the ball to go “in”, focus on the toss. Most beginners make the mistake of not tossing the ball far out enough. Try to toss the ball into the path of the racquet face as it swings through. For forehand serves from the forehand side of the court, toss the ball about 1 foot in front of your front foot. For forehand serves from the backhand side of the court, toss the ball straight out from the middle of your body.  This will allow the natural angle of the swing create the correct angle for the serve.

1) Be ready.  Arrive early to the lesson and warm up.  Don’t waste the first 5-10 minutes of the lesson warming up.  Get on the treadmill for 10-15 minutes, and hit on a free court if one is available.

2) Talk.  Have a few thoughts prepared to share with your teacher at the beginning of the lesson.  Think about your last few games or practice sessions and think about what has gone well, or not so well.  Every bit of information helps the teacher construct a lesson designed to best meet your needs.  I have often adjusted my lesson plan based on the feedback I have gotten at the beginning of a lesson.

3) Be engaged.  Time goes quickly in a lesson.  Focus 100% on what you are trying to achieve.

4) Stay positive.  Don’t get frustrated.  If you don’t pick up the skill right away, understand that learning is a process and at first you will likely not get it.  Progress happens quickest with positive, not negative energy.  Your teacher feeds off your energy, as you do off theirs, so keeping your energy positive brings out the best in both of you.

5) Ask questions.  Don’t wait until the end of the lesson.  The best lessons become a dialogue and as you push and engage your teacher you will get the best out of him or her.  Always ask “why.”  If your teacher cannot give a clear reason why you should do something a certain way, remain skeptical.

6) Leave with a plan.  Be clear about what you should be working on until the next lesson.  Write down everything you learned and are going to work on soon after your lesson while it is fresh in your head.  I have sometimes gotten follow-up e-mails from a student after a lesson to clarify something from a lesson.  As a teacher, I love it when I get a follow-up e-mail.  A clear sign of an engaged, motivated student.

7) Practice.  Get on the court at least twice to practice between lessons.  Don’t expect what you did in a lesson to immediately translate into match play.  You need to practice to ingrain the skill and incorporate it.

Enjoy.  Talk soon!