Want to win? Control the T

Have you ever seen two players, one old and one young, coming off the squash courts in Dillon with the younger player looking ready for a walker and the retiree ready for another match? If so, you have learned the rather unfortunate phenomenon that older people can dominate their younger foes on the squash courts. The cause of this is that many veteran players have come to learn intimately one of the sport's most important principles — control the T.

On the floor of the squash court, there are two lines. One cuts the length of the court in half, while the other roughly divides the back third of the court from the front two-thirds. These two lines intersect at what is known as the T.

The T is the strategically ideal position, both offensively and defensively. It is the friend that the varsity squash squads hang out with not just on the weekends but every day of the week. From the T, a good collegiate player can reach almost every shot that the opponent throws at him.

"The main positional focus is the idea to control the T — the center of the court," men's head coach Bob Callahan said. "If you can control the center and have your opponent moving along the sides of the court, it means you can control the flow of the game."

Unlike the case with tennis, points in squash are infrequently won with a single brilliant serve or scathing shot. Rather, points normally come off a series of long and grueling rallies. In the more advanced levels of play, squash quickly becomes a war of attrition, and the T is the battlefield.

A spectator will see varsity Tigers, like senior No. 1 Yasser El-Halaby of the men's squad, drive their opponents against the sidewalls from the T, lob balls gracefully into the back corners and deliver hopeless drop shots in the front. The goal is twofold: to wear out the opponent and to force the opponent into awkward, difficult positions. At the same time, the player on the T can easily read the opponent's shots and control the flow of the rally.

This strategy sounds pretty easy until the match is against an opponent whose strategy is to force you off the T as much as you are trying to get on it. Often, opponents will hit drives and rails along the sidewalls in order to get you out of the middle.

Experienced players, however, frequently will not respond by increasing the pace of their shots. Instead, they will hit a higher, slower ball right back down the sidewall — turning the rally into a circular movement between the corner and the T. A higher shot down the sidewall gives a player more time to take a couple of breaths and hustle back to the T, as well as giving him a better chance to get his opponent out of position.

Controlling the T can have an exponential effect in a player's favor over the course of the game, since making an opponent run hard in one point can make him more tired for the next point and consequently make the T and the point easier to control. Over time, the process can snowball, and lopsided scores, like the ones that El-Halaby normally produces, can result.

One of the most important factors in controlling a point is having the right mentality and ability to visualize rallies and openings before they happen. Callahan makes sure that every player is mentally focused and has the concentration to keep thinking through long rallies.

"Most good coaches have mastered how to teach the basics to their athletes," freshman Mauricio Sanchez said. "However, excellent coaches are those ones who make you give that extra that you need to win matches. Callahan is one of them; he focuses on mental preparation and visualization. Once you go into the match, he makes sure you are ready to give all your effort since the beginning of the match without losing concentration."

The Tigers have different ways of controlling the T, though. El-Halaby is extremely quick and can cut off shots before they get into the back corner, thus taking his opponent out of position and making it easier for him to get back to the T. Freshman Kimlee Wong, the No. 2-seeded player on the men's team, has developed very strong footwork that helps him easily shuffle to the sidewalls and back to the center.

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There are also players, like juniors Preston Comey and Parker Sutton, who are able to use their height and long arms to reach most shots before they die out in the back corner.

A more universal element of controlling the T is footwork. If a player is taking extra steps to get to the ball and then to recover back to the T, he will be more tired and more likely to get out of position. Thus, fitness and drills become extremely important to make sure players maintain proper footwork in the more intense situations of game play.

The men's squash team routinely practices the different elements of controlling the T with several surprisingly simple drills. One drill is for two players to hit shots only along one of the sidewalls, generating this circular rally and keeping it up as long as possible. Other times, players will practice hitting 50 or 100 drop shots in a row to practice causing the ball to die in the front corners.

Dominating the T is not something that can be picked up in a single drill session, however, but an ability that develops over seasons.

"Learning to control the T is an ongoing process," Callahan said.

The Tigers will look to control the T in their home opener Wednesday night against Franklin & Marshall.