Willstrop serves up a treat

Fans were spoiled during Round 2 of London’s Canary Wharf Classic in March: five former World Number 1s took to the court over 4 hours at the East Wintergarden, the all-English encounter of James Willstrop and Mohamed ElShorbagy the climax to an unforgettable evening. 2-1 to ElShorbagy it finished, and not without its moments of passion and cynicism that reminded the crowd this was no exhibition event. Here are 5 elements which caught my eye.

Willstrop winning short, ElShorbagy winning long

What leaps out of the data is where both players hit their Winning shots to. Willstrop, with characteristic touch and hold, closed out 8 of his 22 Winners into the front left, and a further 6 into the front right: 64% of his winners were drop shots.

The numbers represent the percentage of each player’s Winners hit into each region

By contrast, MES’ Winners exploited length. While the Beast of Bristol has a devastating forehand drop in his armoury, on this occasion he relied on another of his much discussed attributes – power – hitting an unusually high 30% of winners into the back left corner alone. 5 of these 6 Winners were forehand cross court drives, with just 1 straight backhand, indicative of MES having success turning Willstrop.

Forehand Errors from the Beast

But MES didn’t have it all his own way on the forehand: he hit 7 of his 9 Unforced Errors from the right of court. Willstrop made just 4 of his 10 Errors on his forehand.

Information 3 ways: Dots show location of Unforced Errors hit from; numbers represent the percentage of a player’s Unforced Errors hit from each region. The darker the segment, the more Errors made.

Different approaches to tempo

Willstrop frequently sought to slow the game down: he lifted a high 23% of shots in this match (MES did so on 12% of shots). This likely reflects 39-year-old Willstrop’s desire to turn this match into a contest of precision and touch over pace and power; ElShorbagy, by contrast, strained to maintain a high tempo and take shot preparation time away from the Marksman.

Willstrop lifted (‘slow shots’) far more than Shorbagy. Apart from in Game 3, where Willstrop decreased his lift rate and MES increased his.

But the frequency with which both players used height is only half the story: equally revealing is where each player used height from.

Willstrop hit 15 cross court lobs from short on his forehand, as shown by the longest blue bar

Of his 43 shots from short, MES lifted just 5 (12%) — and 0 from his 13 shots from front right, above. As we noted in November, this is way down on the men’s tour average of using the lob 22% of the time when taken short. Equally unusual compared with typical tour lob rates was Willstrop: the Marksman lifted an enormous 38% of shots from short (29 of 76). When looking at lifts from the mid-court the discrepancies grow: Willstrop lifted from mid-court 32 times, MES did so just 4.

He may have opted against lifting from the front, but ElShorbagy was more than happy to slow the game down from deep: he lifted 45 times from deep on his backhand, 12 times more than Willstrop.

From deep left, MES hit 1 in 5 shots to Willstrop’s deep forehand (often the cross court lift), while Willstrop opted to keep things straight every 9 in 10 shots. Numbers represent % of shots each player hit to that region from deep left (circled).

Players often talk about that change in tempo being so hard to live with. ElShorbagy has such a range of options available at his disposal. On this occasion, he turned short exchanges into shoot-outs, while happy to make Willstrop wait with exchanges from deep.

Volleying a predictor of success

The professional game is a different sport to us club players’ contests. But some things in squash don’t change. Control the match by controlling court space – the T. Control the T by taking time away from your opponent. Take time away from your opponent by volleying. And as you’d expect, one of the stand-out features to emerge from the early days of our data collection is that number of volleys hit is a strong predictor of match result.

MES hit 1 in 5 shots on the volley. Willstrop hit 1 in 7. The difference becomes clearer still when looking at volley rates in rallies won by ElShorbagy compared with in rallies won by Willstrop. In those rallies he won, MES hit 1 in 4 shots on the volley; in these same rallies, Willstrop volleyed just 1 in 8.

All metrics, but in only those points won by Shorbagy. As shown in the Volley bars, MES (yellow) hit a quarter of shots on the volley in these successful points.

By contrast, in rallies won by Willstrop, both players volleyed with the same frequency: 1 in 6. Willstrop had success when raising his own volley rate and bringing MES’s down to his. MES has success when squeezing Wilstrop’s volleying and maximising his own.

All metrics, but in only those points won by Willstrop. As shown in the Volley bars, Willstrop and MES hit very similar numbers of volleys during rallies won by the Marksman.

A Game for the ages within a Match for the ages

The best match I’ve seen live also contained the best Game I’ve ever seen, live or otherwise. SquashTV recently offered a free month to new viewers, and it’s worth taking up the subscription to watch this match’s Game 2 alone. 7 all; 8 all; 10 all; 12 all; 14-12 to Willstrop it ended. Both players had Game Balls (MES’ were Match Balls given the Best of 3 format).

Jaw-dropping retrievals, pace, finishing, set against the backdrop of acrimony, accusations and the dark arts: at 10-9 Willstrop, ElShorbagy applied sweat to the ball before ensuring he found the side wall with his serve; Willstrop framed the unexpectedly skidding shot and sarcastically praised his opponent for this underhand tactic.

A lot to take in, but worth the effort: Rally length is shown on the vertical axis; the number of the rally within the Game is shown on the horizontal axis. The colours of the shapes show who won the point, with shape revealing in what manner. The 20th rally — represented by the yellow triangle — shows MES winning the point on a Willstrop Unforced Error on the 2nd shot of the rally: the skid serve.

But this only spurred Willstrop on, winning 4 of the next 6 points to win the Game. Willstrop was so far gone in some of these exchanges, being taken from corner to corner by Shorbagy, he won rallies he had no right to win. I suspect that had MES not gone below the belt tactically, Willstrop may not have had the willpower to keep pushing as he did. A lesson to any aspiring player on how to deal with an adverse situation. Game 2 wasn’t lost by Shorbagy, it was won by Willstrop, who hit 10 Winners in this Game alone.

A little MES shithousery notwithstanding… having spent much of the past 2 months looking at refereeing interventions, it was no small pleasure to take a deep dive into this encounter between two of the game’s ambassadors for free flowing squash. With just 5 refereeing decisions across the entire match, this contest put Asal and Makin’s semi-final rugby match to shame.

The Canary Wharf Classic – now in its 20th year – is practically synonymous with James Willstrop, the tournament’s first winner. And with performances like these, even in defeat, the Marksman is surely guaranteed a wildcard entry for as long as he holds a racket. Just try telling the applauding spectators – and this author – otherwise.