An Exhibition of Excellence

To mark its ten year anniversary, SquashTV recently compiled the greatest rallies of the decade, as voted for by viewers. The skills on display in the shortlists are astounding, from the reactions of Ramy Ashour to the athleticism of Raneem El Welily – and each rally enhanced by the commentary box excitement of Joey Barrington and colleagues. In this blog, Cross Court takes a closer look at the stats behind the classic rallies.

Length helps – but it’s not vital

Unsurprisingly, one aspect connecting many of these rallies was their length. The longer the rally, the greater the opportunity for players to show their remarkable athleticism and fitness, as well as allowing time for swings in momentum. In the women’s shortlist, the average length of rally was 38.2 strokes; in the men’s, this figure is an enormous 60.4. Such rallies–invariably including court sprints and last gasp retrievals by one or both players–would exhaust many good club players, and is testament to the stamina of the top professionals. 

But even if the exchanges tended to be long, length alone wasn’t judged the most appealing quality in a rally. The second best men’s rally was a whopping 160 strokes long, and lasted over 4 minutes; but the rally voted greatest of the decade was by far the shortest of the bunch. At 19 strokes, Ramy Ashour and Gregory Gaultier’s call and response of lightning reactions captured the SquashTV audience’s imagination – and the commentators’, with Ashour’s freakish close range volleying and “go-go-gadget” arms drawing comparisons with Star Trek. It turns out 18 seconds is all you need to demonstrate decade-topping athleticism. 

Court service, please

The appeal of physicality was reflected also in the number of rallies containing dives. Typified by Paul Coll’s extraordinary retrievals against James Willstrop, the men’s rallies contained six dives across four of the rallies. However, the most impressive display of athleticism undoubtedly came from the women’s shortlist, as Kanzy El Defrawy unveiled an astonishing four consecutive dives in her rally against Camille Serme. The Egyptian’s efforts were ultimately in vain, but rightfully brought the audience to their feet and a smile of disbelief from her French opponent. 

The mid-court left unexplored

Another theme running through these twenty rallies was the high number of shots played from deep and from short. Exchanges from deep help explain the length of the rallies, while the shots from short brought out the players’ quick reactions. Additionally, shots from deep and short–that is, further from the T–are most likely to demonstrate players’ retrieval abilities. 

Across the women’s rallies, 19.4% of shots were played from advanced positions–indicative of a player having been brought forward by their opponent–and 62.3% from deep. In the men’s, 54.3% of shots were hit from deep, while a remarkable 27.0% were from short. By contrast, the mid-court was comparatively barren. Shots from this region are often the result of a player intercepting their opponent’s attempted deep shot, and a high percentage suggests one player’s ability to control the rally. In the women’s rallies, just 18.3% of shots were from mid-court, while the men played 18.7% from this region.

These mid-court numbers are significantly lower than most typical rallies – 9 percentage points down on the average mid-court intercept of 27.8% in the British Open mini-series we have reported so far. While domination of the mid-court is often an indicator of match success, it is unsurprising that the greatest rallies of the decade rewarded use of the court extremes. 

Context is key

With the shortlists comprising points taken in isolation, it would have been reasonable to assume the rallies stemmed randomly from any game scenario. Not so – a disproportionate percentage of these rallies came from the “business end” points of games. In 9 of the 20 rallies, at least one player was within two points of winning the game. When Mohamed ElShorbagy pulled off a “tweener” at 9-9 in the fourth, Ramy Ashour was two points from winning the World Championship. With reason, it was audacity, skill, and athleticism in the face of severe consequences which privileged these rallies in the minds’ of SquashTV viewers. 

Errors underrepresented 

In addition to the high proportion of rallies from the final points of a game, the way the rally came to be decided was also skewed. Fifteen of the twenty rallies were decided by a winner, and only one resulted in a let. Two of the rallies in each shortlist were ended by unforced errors – an understandably low fraction given this unsatisfying way for a rally to finish. 

A sprinkling of magic

If errors are an unsatisfying conclusion to a rally, viewers handsomely rewarded the polar opposite – an outrageous winner. Mathieu Castagnet’s astonishing sprint and drive against Daryl Selby was a prime example, or Camille Serme’s pin-point set-up and kill after a brutal exchange with Hania El Hammamy. James Willstrop’s dizzying “triple-fake” against Karim Abdel Gawad defies belief, and is topped only by Raneem El Welily’s behind-the-back finish against Nour El Sherbini: a winner good enough for shot of the month, on top of a rally of the decade. 

No set recipe

Yet while there were traits running through many of the rallies–high number of shots, “big-point” contexts and shots played from the extremes of the court–there is clearly no formula for a memorable rally. The longest rally lasted 4 minutes; the shortest, just 9 shots. Gaultier volleyed 5 of his 9 shots against Ashour, while Sarah-Jane Perry volleyed once in a 61-shot rally with Camille Serme. Joel Makin used the back wall on 44.1% of his groundstrokes against Mohamed ElShorbagy, and took the pace off on 27.5% of shots. El Hammamy used the back wall just twice in 17 strokes, while Castagnet hit every shot with pace against Selby. 

The best rallies of the 2020s will no doubt match the athleticism and skill of the 2010s. Winners will continue to be valued over errors; the power to amaze of unlikely retrievals won’t ever fade. But, thankfully, precisely which delights await squash fans over the decade to come is anybody’s guess.