ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dick Squires is certainly qualified to produce this manual on “Instant Squash Tennis.”

Added to an articulateness which equips him to put his experience and knowledge into words, his background in racquet games is broad, longstanding and at a level sufficiently upper echelon to have garnered national championships in three separate bat and ball sports.

Starting early, in Bronxville, N.Y., he was a member of the National Junior Davis Cup Tennis team at 17.  Emerging from The Hill School in 1949 and fitted with the National Junior Tennis Doubles crown, he went through Williams College with the class of 1953.

In 1954, he was 50 percent of the title winning team in the National Squash Racquets men’s Doubles Championships, and was ranked seventh nationally in singles.  Twice a finalist in the National Intercollegiate Squash Racquets Championship, he was elected President of the National Intercollegiate Association in 1952.

Less active in formal competition for some years, he latterly became interested in a newly burgeoning racquet sport, and attained the pinnacle in the 1966 National Platform Paddle Tennis Doubles Championships.

Meanwhile, he had become fascinated with the venerable game of Squash Tennis.  Attacking it with his usual enthusiasm and natural aptitudes, in two years he mastered this relatively difficult game sufficiently to be runner-up in the Nationals Singles (1966).  Concurrently, he devoted the aforementioned enthusiasm to heading a program to revitalize the game; with significant results.  Finally, also in 1967, he was elected President of the 57 year old National Squash Tennis Association.

A word about the various illustrations showing the squash tennis court and various shots:  The solid * is you and your position and the O is your opponent’s.  The direction of flight of the ball is indicated by arrows and the “x” indicates when and where the ball bounces on the floor.  “F” indicates forehand, “B” backhand, and the “S” is the service.  In all descriptions it is assumed the player is right-handed.

(Illustrated by Richard Kaiser)

[Transcriber’s Note:  See the HTML version of this e-book for illustrations.  Figure captions have been transferred to the text in brackets.]

WHO CAN PLAY?

Anyone who enjoys playing Tennis, Squash Racquets, Platform Tennis, or any racquet game and has good reflexes will love Squash Tennis.

Where it lacks the endurance and subtlety that Squash Racquets calls for, it offers the exhilaration inherent in powerfully hit strokes, split-second racquet work, and graceful, seemingly unhurried footwork.  The ball “comes to you” more often, but the challenge is to figure out the wider angles and exactly where the lightning fast green ball will eventually end up after rebounding off of as many as five walls.