QUARANTINE SQUASH - EDITION 3 - THE RACQUET SPIN

Happy Thursday! As we creep into day 3 of our dreaded lockdown, we are just as keen as ever to make sure you aren't losing your positive spirits!

Episode three of Quarantine Squash has just been returned from the edit room and is ready to go. For today's topic, we decided to take a slightly different tact... in fact we hardly took any tact at all. Purely for your amusement, don't expect us to be dedicating any future lesson time to this completely flippant exercise.

This one was difficult to film actually... keeping a straight face was virtually impossible. We edited the most acceptable cuts we could find!

Hope you enjoy the third (4th?) video in the series, just to keep you smiling.🌞

QUARANTINE SQUASH - EDITION 4 - BACKHAND DROP

Shut down, Schmut down. We have all been told to hunker down for at least 3 weeks... Rotten luck. However, we have managed to get some filming done today and we bring to you, the 4th video in the series - the Backhand Dropshot.

You may be asking, "where is the 3rd video?" and that would be an excellent question! Video #3 is still in the editing room. We will release it as soon as we can... which maybe later this week.

Because of the stay at home restrictions, a daily video will not be possible, but Stu and I will do our best to connect with you a often as possible. Until the next time, enjoy today's episode, we have included a little challenge for you in it, and we look forward to your responses! Stay safe!

QUARANTINE SQUASH - EDITION 2 - THE RETURN OF SERVE

G'day Everybody!

I hope you are all staying healthy and missing the the DAC as much as the DAC misses you! Here is our second video of the series - the Return of Serve.

Remember, this is a simple overview of the skill, there is more to it than what is explained here, but it is solid fundamental start to improving your thought process behind it. Once again, even though you can't come in and practice just yet, try to envision the shot and picture yourself executing the correct footwork, technique and shot choice.

Feel free to reach out to either Stu or me if you have any further questions. Don't hold Stu's choice of purple shirt against him.

QUARATINE SQUASH - EDITION 1 - THE SERVE

"Ello, Ello!" Welcome to the new series of little videos that Stu Hadden and I will be creating over the next couple of weeks as the world is shutting down. Since everyone is protecting themselves from the Corona Virus, we thought to help you with your self-imposed Cabin Fever (!!), we would throw together some squash tips for you to chew over.

Our aim is to send out a video per day for you to break up the work-life monotony and  even if you cannot get on court to actually play squash, maybe we can get you to least think and dream about it.

We start off the series with the first shot that is played in every single rally: The Serve.

We hope you enjoy the series, please feel free to reach out to Stu and I if you have any questions about the videos.

THE MAD RUSH TO THE FINALS

Boasters League final round~~

It was another last minute stampede by all the teams to complete as many matches as possible before the deadline. If only that desperation kicked in weeks ago, who would be in the finals may be quite different. Every team picked up at least 35 points since last Wednesday, with the exception of Butter Nutz who of course had the bye so they are hardly to blame for that. Butter Nutz still picked up 16 points which was significant because without it they would have been eliminated.

Nicker Ballers proved to be frantic just enough, as they picked up 48 points and somehow – after lingering in 8^th and 9^th spot all season long – managed to squeeze themselves into the 6^th and last finals position… at the expense of Over Served and the Wardogs. Mongoose clearly set the standard again, easily finishing on top and the stats below will explain why.

Overall the numbers for the second half of Boasters League are not that great despite the last ditch effort of this past week (which absolutely helped, but we still fell short of wanted expectations).

• 68% of matches were completed. Down 1% from the second half last season, and 4% from two years ago. I don’t like the downward trend here. 
• Mongoose played the most matches with 78%. Hardly surprising. Next best was Winky-Dinks with 73%. Butter Nutz was the only other team to reach 70%. 
• In fact, Mongoose scored more points in the second half than they did in the first half! Very unusual to say the least. 
• On the other hand, the team that came 7^th in the first half this season would have finished 4^th for the second half (223 points). 
• Wardogs played the least with only 61%. They missed the finals by 3 points. 
• Round 2 had the most amount of matches played with just 80%. 
• Winky-Dinks had the greatest win percentage with 56.57%, beating Foss Nation in this category by 0.19%. They also had the greatest amount of 3-0 wins with 28. When the Winky-Dinks won a match, they won it 3-0 50% of the time (best in the league). 
• Lowest win percentage was Nick at Night with 39%. 
• Butter Nutz had a win percentage of just 43% and from those wins, would only win 3-0 just 32% of the time (lowest in the league). The reason they are in the finals is because they played the third highest amount of matches.
• Most points scored in any one round was 42 – Winky-Dinks in round 1 and Mongoose in round 6. 
• Least amount of points in any one round was 17 and was achieved 4 times: Wardogs in round 8, Butter Nutz in round 8 and Nick at Night twice – rounds 5 and 9. 
• Bonus points always paint a clear picture. The top four teams picked up the most bonus points. The bottom four teams picked up the least. If Nick at Night scored as many bonus points as Mongoose, they would be playing next week. 
• Twenty players picked up all 8 bonus points. Not too bad. Ten players didn’t pick up any. Not too good. 
• Just 19 players played all 8 matches. That’s not exactly spectacular. Three players didn’t play any… all due to injury. 
• Nobody played all 8 matches and went undefeated. 
• Mark Fikany (Mongoose) scored the most points this half of any player with 27.

So the quarter final frenzy is upon us. The top 2 teams get the free pass and they have that extra week to prepare. We also lose the two courts on level 4 starting on Monday due to the construction, so everybody will have to be very flexible with their schedules and do their utmost to squeeze their matches in with the limited space we have left.

First up is Foss Nation v Nicker Ballers. This – on paper - is leaning heavily towards Foss Nation for a comfortable victory. When these two played each other in round 4, Foss Nation won 27-20 despite picking up 2 less bonus points, and won 8 of 11 matches. Four of those 8 results were also 3-0. Nicker Ballers will have to step it up here, but it is tough to look past the previous stats and one must put their good money on Foss Nation getting through to the semifinals. 

The other match-up is Butter Nutz v Vivio’s. Their round 2 result had Vivio’s taking it 33-29, they also had 3 more bonus points, but won only 6 of the 13 matches that were completed… and of those 13 matches only one ended up 3-0. A very even looking contest here, but if I had to put my neck on the line – knowing that when I do this, it is usually the kiss of death…! – with great trepidation I am placing my chips on Butter Nutz. 

MARCH MADNESS MAYHEM

By Stu Hadden

March Madness Doubles Tournament – London, Ontario, Feb 28-29

As many of you may be aware, Mick and I are far from doubles specialists. But, we have recently made the decision to work on our doubles game. Last weekend Haytham Hermiz, Mick and I traveled to the 'fake' London (Ontario) in search of glory and silverware at the hardball doubles event appropriately named “March Madness”… even though it was in February for some strange reason.

Friday night’s match for us was anything but straightforward as we had only ever played one doubles match together and were struggling at the start to get to grips with the very different tactics of this type of squash. Our opponents on the other hand almost exclusively play doubles and were, for want of a better turn of phrase, crafty little scoundrels. We slowly but surely adapted our strategies throughout round 1 and by the end of the match had hit decent form. I was playing mainly high and deep, generating loose balls for the Australian sniper waiting on the right wall to shoot the lights out.

Haytham, as per usual had brought his running shoes with him and picked up far too many balls for his opposition to be in with any reasonable shout of winning. In the bar that evening he and one of his opponents for the semifinals – Owen - produced one of the finest displays of Jamison drinking and smack talk that I have ever witnessed, the kind usually reserved only for Australia vs England cricket matches. When I am king of England, I fully intend to offer him honorary citizenship for his efforts both in the bar and on the court where he miraculously turned up for his at 9am contest the next morning and duly backed up the trash-talking with a 3-1 shellacking over Owen.

In our semifinal we were up against stiff opposition in the 2 seeds who are serial winners of the DAC Classic A doubles draw. Unfortunately for them we picked up where we left off at the end of our last match and I had finally figured out the technique for putting the ball away on the backhand side. Ultimately we trounced them 3-0 in just shy of 45m, putting on a clean and crisp display of doubles.

We then watched the other semifinal and realized we were in big trouble. The left wall in our match would end up looking like Harry Potter vs Hagrid as the left hander from Toronto (Will Byrick) had me by well over a foot. The oak hit the ball like an absolute rocket and had a polished classic forehand technique. Surveilling his first game was pretty amazing as he rolled out nick after nick beating Brad Hanebury and his partner Derek Moore almost single handedly 15-2. On the left wall, Mick was also clearly going to be in for a bit of a night. His opponent (Chris Boden) not only hit the ball harder than both of us but had a real set of wheels on him, regularly throwing out full length splits, dives and pirouettes.

After watching Haytham claim victory in the C doubles we felt inspired (pressured?!) to go and do the same. A late start at 9pm, but the time came around quickly and suddenly we were up. As expected our opponents got off to a good start, slotting winners and trying to hit the ball through the front wall. I hadn’t found my range on the cross court nick yet and gave away a bit of a lead which we would eventually peg back. We made it to 14-14 before Mick’s opponent jumped about 3 feet in the air and rolled out a nick to give them the first. Bugger.

The second was one of the worst games of squash I personally remember playing, with yours truly missing the ball on three serve returns in a row. Mick was probably getting ready to bury me in the hill out back – or make me walk back to Detroit in my squash shorts in the 25 degree weather.  Needless to say with my “scintillating” form we were quickly 2-0 down.

We were far from done though.  Coming out guns blazing in the third, we caught them off guard with a far more aggressive style of play. Comfortably taking the third. The fourth game was solid but at the back end of it, Chris suddenly caught fire and had a patch of about 5 mins where he simply couldn’t and wouldn’t miss – which made him shoot even more - and was completely unplayable. Even Mick’s last ditch dive (old-man stumble?) wouldn’t be enough to keep us in the match and our Canadian contemporaries ran out a 3-1 victory in over an hour.

Cheers to London squash club for having us down and to Rob Doherty for organizing the event. We are really looking forward to going back next year, hopefully with a large contingent of DAC doubles players.