Have you ever wondered what its like being a professional squash player? Well your in luck! PSA Squash TV along with some independent short film makers have documented the training and day-to-day activities of some current squash professionals. View them below.
 To celebrate free match friday we have compiled a selection of free matches that you can have access to RIGHT HERE! For those that enjoyed these matches make sure to check out and subscribe to SQUASHTV as they are the premium provider of squash broadcasting, covering all major competitions.
David Palmer, also known as “The Marine” due to his insatiable work ethic and never die attitude has recently being inducted into the Australian Commonwealth Games Hall of Fame.  Pictured: David Palmer (Source: Commonwealth Games 2018) Palmer is the most successful Australian player in squash history at the Commonwealth Games recording a total of 9 medals (4 Bronze medals, 2 Silver medals and 3 Gold medals). Palmer’s most recent success came at the 2018 Commonwealth Games where he won a Gold medal with partner Zac Alexander in the men’s doubles. A full article detailing Palmer’s induction can be found here. For more information about past Commonwealth Games results and history, check out our infographic. Below is a replay of Palmer's Gold medal match against Peter Nicol and a tribute that was created once Palmer announced his retirement from the game in 2012. In our previous serve and return of serve blog, we discussed how the serve is one of the most underutilised shots in a match. We even gave you some expert tips from 3x World Champion, Nick Matthew (If you missed it, click this link). In this article we will give you a few tips to help in choosing the right serve.  Pictured: Nick Matthew making the most of his serve at the Canary Wharf Squash Classic.
 Pictured: Cameron Pilley serving at the Commonwealth Games. If you enjoyed these tips and are looking for more ways to improve your service game or your return of serve, then we highly recommend joining us for our serveand return of serveclinics! Using deliberate practice principles, you will learn in minute detail what you need to plan to do, what to be thinking and then what to do to remove the serve and/or the return of serve as a disadvantage and turn it into an advantage!
Some of the topics covered in the 2 hour clinics are as follows: The Serve:
The Return Of Serve:
To book your place in the serve clinic click here. To book your place in the return of serve clinic click here. Please note there are only a limited number of clinics that are going to be run, so get in quick! The serve and the return of serve can dictate the outcome of the whole rally, though many people do not take the opportunity to use this to their advantage. This is a crazy thought since the serve is the only time during a match that you can hit the ball wherever you would like... and you feed yourself the ball!  Pictured: Ramy Ashour serving to start the rally. In the professional game, studies have shown that the serve hits the side wall prior to the player receiving the ball 83% and 72% of the time on the forehand and backhand sides, respectively. The received ball was returned to the back of the court 80% of the time, 54% of these returns were a straight drive, 46% were cross-court drives, and the ball was more often directed to the opponent’s backhand side (61%). Below, Nick Matthew discusses the his views on the importance of the serve and return of serve. At East Coast Squash Academy, we agree with Nick! For that reason, we will be running two 2-hour clinics focused solely on the serve and the return of serve using deliberate practice principles. Join us to understand how to take your serve and return of serve to the next level and make them both as effective as possible!
For more information about how the serve and return of serve clinics can help you, click on the links above or contact us here. Earlier in May, the combined high schools competition was held at Thornleigh. For the first time in over a decade, a team of 6 boys from Balgowlah Boy's High School entered the competition.  Pictured L-R: James, Jonah, Mitchell, Liam and Aaron. (Missing: Tom and Seb). Under the tutelage of director Aaron Frankcomb, the boys were able to make it to the semi-finals of the competition. Balgowlah eventually lost out to the eventual winners in a 3 match tie that was decided by a games count back. East Coast Squash Academy would like to congratulate all of the boys involved! This is a great result for a team that has only been playing since October 2017! Keep your eyes peeled as there will be big things to come from this group!
How would you like to join Australia’s leading Squash Academy and pass on your skills and experience in the field of squash to our next generation of Champions? At the East Coast Squash Academy we currently have the perfect opportunity for an exceptional professional female coach to do just that.  Pictured: Coach Tiffany Hau - HWR:106 As Australia’s elite professional squash academy, we’re looking for an individual with coaching experience to fill this role. This is a unique opportunity, as East Coast Squash Academy is a peak performance centre of excellence that is re-defining the way squash is developed in the community. With over 2,000 squash players spread across multiple locations in Sydney Australia, you’ll have the opportunity to work with various levels of players ranging from grass roots/beginner to the high performance and elite.
Our mission is to grow the game of squash throughout all ages and implement a strong structure across our business. We want to give opportunities to rising stars in Australia to play squash full time and have an Academy model in place so that the young generation can have role models and structure to achieve their full potential. We are looking for a female squash coach with the following attributes:
Our hiring process is based on best practices methodology. The first step is submission of your interest by way of an email with your current CV or short bio. Tell us why you think you’re the right person for this opportunity. Simply be yourself – don’t try to be funny or creative – we just want to get to know you as a person. We know you can play/coach squash, what we’re looking for is an individual with the personality that fits our approach. If your introductory email is successful and it ‘ticks all the necessary boxes’, we’ll send you a personality profile test to further determine if you’ll fit into our team structure. If you make it past that hurdle and you have what we are looking for, we’ll connect with you on the phone or via Skype. In an effort to avoid wasting your time or ours, we’ll be taking a very systemised and deliberate process – to make the best decision to hire the right person and at the same time making sure that you’re 100% committed to following through. Last weekend, director Aaron Frankcomb successfully competed in the 24thMAASH Open. Following his success, Aaron has shared some of his best warm up tips to help you get on top of your opponent from the word go.  Pictured L-R: Alex Crouch and Aaron Frankcomb before the final of the 24th MAASH Open. In a game of squash you only have 5 minutes to establish how you are going to approach the game… that’s only 2 and a half minutes each side to figure out your opponent! In this time YOU need to do the following: You Need To Identify How The Court Plays- Every court plays differently. Traditional hardback courts play different to traditional courts that have a glass backwall and an all glass court plays differently to both types of courts all-together. Other factors that effect how a court plays includes: the temperature, humidity, the quality/newness of the ball and the flooring. Identifying these factors during the warm up will allow you to adjust the weight of your shots and allow you target specific areas of the court i.e. dead floorboards in the back or front corners. To test how the court plays you need to vary your shot selection (lobs, drops, drives, boasts, cross-courts and kills). You Need To Identify How The Ball Plays – There are three types of balls: a rocket Ball, a standard ball and a dead ball. A rocket ball is typically as hard as a rock and it fly’s around the court. If you identify that you are playing with a rocket ball in the warm up then you will need to adjust your game plan to use the pace of the ball and be really aggressive to the back of the court. A dead ball is typically really soft and spongy, which causes the ball to die quite easily. If you identify that you are playing with a dead ball ball in the warm then you will need to adjust your game plan to use the pace of the ball and be really aggressive to the front of the court. If the ball is neither a rocket ball nor a dead ball and it is playing quite neutral, then you should adjust your weight of shot according to how the court plays. You Need To Identify Your Opponents Weaknesses – The warm up is a perfect opportunity to test your opponent’s skill. Varying both the weight of shot and the height is a good way to see if there are any chinks in their armour. You Need To Win The Warm Up Aaron was fortunate to play some of the best players in the world (Greg Gaultier, David Palmer, Thierry Lincou, Mohammed El Shorbagy and Nick Matthew), some of which had an INSTANT presence on court. For Aaron, this was “intimidating” due to the nature that these players would hold themselves. “Each player followed their presence up with very accurate hitting whilst taking the ball extremely early. This causes the warm up to become very intense and nearly game like, as some players would appear to be so competitive that they look as if they are trying to WIN the warm up by trying to get the ball past you. By holding themselves this way, this causes in many cases their opponents to be psychologically beat before the game has even started” So, overall what are the lessons that these pro’s taught Aaron during a warm up? “These lessons for me over the years has taught me to not lower my bar for anyone, as I should play at the level I want to play. This places me in the right mind set from the word go allowing me to varying my shots, take the ball early whilst reacting and responding like a game situation”. Below are Aaron’s final results from the 24th MAASH Open.
The East Coast Squash Academy would like to thank and congratulate Jason on running another great event! Winter is fast approaching and that means its becoming a little harder to warm up the ball! With this in mind, we have provided you with this video to give you a little motivation the next time you step on court for your warm up! Ps. Make sure you don't forget to warm your body up with some dynamic stretching before trying this!
It’s the 4th of May that means it is International Star Wars Day. To celebrate we thought we would give you a sneak peak of Yoda wielding his new Prince TeXtreme Pro Airstick Lite 550 Squash Racket in our small group classes this morning! LOL!  Pictured: Yoda preparing to give his padawan's a lesson in squash! |
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