🎾Glossary

Terms

Terms people actually search for first.

Boast Boast

A shot that hits the side wall before reaching the front wall, sharply changing the ball's direction. It's the standard escape when a player can't drive straight out of a back corner, and it drags the opponent all the way to the opposite front corner, forcing maximum travel distance. The tradeoff is giving up the T, so a boast is usually punished with a counter drop. Needing fewer forced boasts over a match is a real marker of improving skill.

Clearing Clearing

The obligation, after hitting a shot, to give the opponent access to the ball, a fair swing, and a straight path to the front wall. It's the central rule underpinning this sport's shared-court nature, and failing to clear costs a stroke, not just a let. Making a habit of vacating the middle of the court the instant you hit the ball is what separates beginners and intermediates.

Conduct penalty Conduct penalty

Discipline applied by the referee in four escalating steps: a warning, then forfeiting a stroke, a game, or the match. It covers racquet abuse, audible or visible dissent, deliberate stalling, excessive appeals, verbal abuse and physical intimidation. Because the ball cools and dies quickly, stalling itself becomes a genuine competitive advantage, so time-wasting is policed especially strictly, and a serious first offense can jump straight to a forfeited game.

Counter drop Counter drop

An answer to an opponent's drop shot or boast that drops the ball short again into the same front corner. It's one of the most physically demanding shots to defend, since a player who was just sprinting forward has to immediately reverse or retreat. But the player hitting it is also trapped at the front, so a miss costs the rally outright — it should only be attempted with plenty of time to reach the ball.

Cross-court Cross-court

A shot hit diagonally across the court to the opposite side. It's a way of changing the direction of a rally, and its quality is determined entirely by width. Too narrow and it drifts into the range of an opponent standing on the T, ready to be volleyed away; wide enough and it either clips the far side wall deep or dies in the nick. It's also one of the shots that costs beginners the most points.

Cut line Cut line

A line on the front wall 6 feet above the floor, also called the service line. A serve must strike the front wall between this line and the out line, and touching the line itself is a fault. It has no rule significance after the serve, but how far above this line a drive is aimed largely determines its length, so it stays a constant aiming reference in practice.

Deception Deception

The skill of disguising shot direction until the last possible instant to wrong-foot the opponent's first step. Because the court is small, the opponent has to commit to a direction before the ball is even struck, which is what makes deception so effective. The key is setting up the same preparation so that either a drop or a drive can follow from it, and it's part of the stylistic foundation behind why Egyptian players have dominated the world's top ranks. It only works, though, when you reach the ball with time to spare.

Double yellow dot Double yellow dot

The grading mark for the slowest-bouncing, professional-grade ball, standardized around 2000. It's nearly dead when cold and needs several minutes of hard hitting to come alive. A beginner starting on this ball will feel like it barely bounces at all and tends to quit quickly, so beginners should start on a red-dot or blue-dot ball and step down in grade gradually.

Down Down

A call made when the ball hits the tin, or bounces on the floor, before reaching the front wall, ending the rally immediately in the opponent's favor. Since the tin stands just 19 inches high, and only 17 inches at men's professional events, most cases of this come from a drop shot or kill attempt struck half an inch too low. At full speed it can be hard to distinguish from a perfect nick, which is why professional matches frequently see review requests over this exact call.

Drive Drive

The basic shot hit straight at the front wall. A straight drive that tracks along the side wall, also called a rail, is the main tool for building length, while a cross-court drive sent to the opposite side is used to change direction. Most beginner practice time goes into this single shot, and once a drive reliably lands deep in the back corner, everything else comes together far more easily.

Drop shot Drop shot

A finishing shot played softly into a front corner just above the tin, ending the rally. Clipping the side wall on the way in kills the bounce even further. It only works when the opponent is behind the T, so building length before playing a drop is basic grammar in this sport. The margin for error is razor-thin — a touch too low and it clips the tin, a touch too high and it gets punished with a counter drop.

Fault Fault

A serve that breaks the rules and immediately loses the rally. This covers a foot outside the service box or touching a line, the ball striking below the cut line or above the out line, and the ball failing to land in the correct back quarter of the court. Squash allows no second serve, so a single fault costs a point outright, which is exactly why a conservative, high lob serve became the standard rather than a forced hard one.

Glass court Glass court

A portable exhibition court built with some or all of its four walls in glass. It lets spectators watch from outside the court, which proved decisive for broadcast and box office, and it's why tournaments have been staged at Grand Central Terminal in New York, in front of the Pyramids in Giza, and at Hong Kong's harbor. Sight lines change from the inside due to reflections and background, so players typically take separate time to adjust.

Half-court line Half-court line

The line running from the short line to the back wall, splitting the rear half of the court left and right and dividing the two service boxes. It's the reference for judging whether a served ball landed in the correct rear quarter, and the point where it meets the short line is the T. There's no equivalent line in the front half, so the full floor markings together form roughly an upside-down letter T.

Hold Hold

A technique of reaching the ball early, then pausing the racquet briefly at the top of the swing to delay the hit. It forces the opponent to commit to a direction first, then the shot goes to the space they vacated. The combination known as hold and flick, which lets either a drop or a cross-court come out of the identical setup, has become a core weapon in the modern professional game. It has exactly one requirement: enough time and stamina to reach the ball comfortably.

Kill shot Kill shot

A low, hard finishing shot hit to bounce twice before the opponent can reach it. It's usually played on a loose, floating ball, struck downward from a high contact point toward the base of a side wall or the nick. Where a drop shot finishes by taking pace off, a kill shot finishes with pace. The tin's low height leaves almost no margin, so it should only be played once the opponent is fully out of position.

Knock-up Knock-up

A five-minute warm-up period before a match in which both players hit together on court, switching sides after two and a half minutes. It loosens up the body, but its real purpose is warming the ball. A double-yellow-dot ball barely bounces when cold, and without enough heating up, a proper rally can't even get started. This procedure is worth keeping even in casual recreational play.

Length Length

Sending the ball deep enough into the court to land behind the service box and die in a back corner. It's the safest and most fundamental concept in squash, pushing the opponent back behind the T and taking away their attacking options. Length is controlled by the height of the aiming point on the front wall, not by power, and a hard, short ball rebounding off the back wall into the middle of the court is the single most common mistake at club level.

Let Let

A call replaying the rally with no point awarded, used when interference occurred but the outcome isn't clear-cut. The classic case is when the opponent tried to clear but the interfered player would only have made a fair return, not a clear winner. It's also called when a returned ball on its way to the front wall strikes the opponent, or if the ball breaks mid-rally. In recreational play with no referee, the two players agree on the call themselves.

Lob Lob

A high, slow shot lofted above the opponent's racquet reach to land in a back corner. It avoids being cut off on the volley and buys time to recover to the T, making it nearly the only way to reset a rally when caught out of position at the front. This is why modern professional matches show more high, slow shots than casual viewers tend to expect.

Lunge Lunge

Squash's signature move: a deep forward step with a lowered body to stretch the racquet out to the ball. Because the court is small, the final approach to almost every shot ends up in this shape, and at the top level it repeats every two to three seconds. It loads the front knee and hip through a large range of motion, so without eccentric strength and ankle mobility to support it, it leads directly to injury. Landing heel-first, not on the toes, is the basic principle.

Nick Nick

A shot that strikes exactly where the side wall meets the floor, so the ball rolls out along the floor instead of bouncing up. It's essentially unreturnable, making it the ideal endpoint for a cross-court or a volley kill. It doesn't happen every time it's attempted, since a difference of an inch or two decides it, but the odds rise sharply on a properly built width, which is why it's used as the target for width-training drills.

No let No let

A ruling where the player who appealed for interference actually loses the rally instead. It's called when the player couldn't have reached the ball anyway, when the interference was minor enough to have no bearing on the outcome, or when no genuine attempt was made to play the ball. The 2019 rule revision explicitly discourages speculative appeals aimed at cheap points, and referees have increasingly favored players who keep playing through contact rather than stopping.

Not up Not up

A call for a return that fails to count as legal. This covers hitting the ball after it bounces twice, carrying it on the racquet strings, double-hitting it, or the ball touching the player's own body or clothing. Along with down and out, it's one of three calls that end a rally independent of any interference, and the video reviews in professional matches are mostly used to check these three.

Out line Out line

The boundary line running around the top of the court, set 15 feet high on the front wall and 7 feet high on the back wall, sloping to connect the two along the side walls. A ball that touches this line or the wall above it is out, and hitting the line itself also counts as out. It functions as the effective ceiling for a lob, setting the margin available on any ball hit high.

Point-a-rally scoring (PAR) Point-a-rally scoring (PAR)

The current scoring system in which every rally scores a point regardless of who served. Games go to 11, win by 2 from 10-10, and matches are best of five games. The men's professional tour adopted it in 2004, and the World Squash Federation extended it to every level starting in the 2008-09 season, replacing the old English system where only the server could score and games went to 9. Matches got shorter and the game got more aggressive as a result.

Protective eyewear Protective eyewear

Polycarbonate-lensed equipment worn to protect the eyes; most governing bodies require it for juniors and doubles matches. A squash ball's diameter fits almost exactly into the human eye socket, so a direct hit can cause serious damage. Regular glasses or sunglasses are actually more dangerous if they shatter, so racquet-sport-specific eyewear is required, and it runs roughly $25-$60 in the United States.

PSA World Tour PSA World Tour

The global professional tour and world ranking system run by the Professional Squash Association. The men's and women's associations merged in 2015 and now manage a combined schedule, ranking system, and marketing under one banner. Rankings aren't a calendar-year points race but a rolling calculation of a player's best results over a set window, and seeding at major events like the World Open is set from this ranking.

Rail Rail

Another name for the straight drive hit tight along the side wall. The tighter it hugs the wall, the less swinging room it leaves an opponent, but clip the side wall too early and the ball rebounds into the middle, handing over the attack instead. Professional matches often trade rails back and forth for minutes at a time, because whichever player loosens their line first gets attacked immediately.

Service box Service box

A 5.25-foot square marked on each side of the back half of the court; when serving, at least part of one foot must stay entirely inside this box without touching any line. Either box can be used to open a game, but sides switch every time a point is won. It also serves as a reference for judging length, since a ball landing behind this box counts as good length.

Short line Short line

A line running across the court 17.9 feet from the front wall, splitting the court into front and back halves. Unless the receiver volleys it, a served ball must land in the opposite back quarter behind this line. Where it meets the half-court line marks the T, and in practice this line comes up far more often as a positional reference than as a scoring call.

Stroke Stroke

The strongest interference ruling, awarding the rally and the point outright to the player who was blocked. It's called when the opponent made no genuine effort to clear, when the swing itself was physically blocked, when a return on a straight path to the front wall struck the opponent, or when a winning shot was clearly available. Without this rule in place, simply standing in front of the ball would be a viable tactic, which is exactly why it exists to hold the sport together.

The T The T

The center-court spot where the short line meets the half-court line, the point with the shortest average distance to all four corners. A player who returns here after every shot moves less and arrives earlier, which is why almost all squash tactics start from this single point. Standing here while blocking the opponent's path to the ball costs a stroke, though, so it should be understood as a rhythm of clearing and returning rather than a spot to occupy and hold.

Tin Tin

The metal strip fixed to the bottom of the front wall; hitting it ends the rally in the opponent's favor. Its standard height is 19 inches, though most men's professional events lower it to 17 inches to encourage more attacking play. It makes an audible sound on contact, so the call is unambiguous. It's squash's equivalent of a tennis net, and it's the single biggest reason this sport rewards precision over raw power.

Trickle boast Trickle boast

A surprise boast played by just clipping the near side wall to trickle the ball into the front corner. Because the swing looks like a drive right up until the sudden change in direction, it becomes effectively unreachable for an opponent stuck at the back of the court. It's a high-risk shot, though: if it's read correctly, or if the opponent is already at the front, the ball floats slowly into the middle of the court and hands over the rally outright.

Turn Turn

Spinning the body around to play a ball that has rebounded off the back wall. It's legal under the rules, but the instant a player turns, the opponent disappears from view, making it one of the more dangerous moments in squash. The rule and the etiquette is to stop and call a let rather than swing if the ball looks likely to hit the opponent; hitting them after turning can actually cost the rally instead.

US Squash US Squash

The national governing body for squash in the United States, founded in 1904 and one of the sport's oldest federations. Headquartered at the Arlen Specter US Squash Center on Drexel University's Philadelphia campus, it runs national and regional amateur tournaments, junior and college programming, and rankings, and the venue has hosted the US Open since 2013. Anyone planning to enter a sanctioned amateur tournament should check its membership and registration requirements first.

Volley Volley

Striking the ball out of the air before it bounces. It cuts roughly a second out of the rally cycle, denying the opponent recovery time, and creates an attacking chance from a higher contact point closer to the front wall. It's also the standard punishment for a cross-court that lacks enough width. A player standing tall near the T is usually positioning to take the ball before it drops.

Width Width

How far side to side a shot is sent, forming, along with length, the two axes of squash tactics. A cross-court needs enough width to clear an opponent's volley reach, while a straight shot needs enough width to hug the side wall without clipping it too early. What advanced players mean when they talk about hitting through a gap of a few inches is exactly this value.

World Squash Federation World Squash Federation

The international governing body, founded in 1967 as the International Squash Rackets Federation and renamed in 1992, headquartered in Hastings, England. It sets specifications for courts, balls and racquets and rules of play, and runs the World Championship and World Team Championship. After repeated failed bids, it's also the body that finally got squash onto the program for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics in 2023.

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