A Commentary by Markus Gaebel, CEO of the Squash Facilities Network
An article from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung by Thomas Klemm explains the popularity of padel through an interview with Johannes Lindmeyer, one of the best German padel players. In this article, he summarized some key points as follows:
Easy Entry and Quick Success: Padel enables quick and spectacular rallies through shorter rackets, smaller courts, and underhand serves. This allows players to experience success early, boosting motivation.
Social Component: Padel is always played in doubles, which fosters social interaction. Players often enjoy time together after the game, strengthening the sense of community.
Family Friendliness: Padel is a sport that can be played together by people of all ages and genders, making it an ideal family sport.
Ease of Learning: Padel is technically less demanding than tennis. After just one hour, players can engage in rallies.
Transferability to Squash
The question now arises whether squash can draw conclusions from these key points of padel's popularity. The answer is a clear YES.
The trend towards racket sports, not just to padel, in the leisure landscape is evident. A motivation that drives almost everyone following this trend is to have fun in a sporting game with friends. According to the "Squash Global Report 2024," 90% of squash players are recreational players with little or no interest in the elite sports side of squash.
The question now is how the key points of the current popularity of other racket sports can be transferred to squash.
Potential for Squash
Without a doubt, squash meets all the requirements to take advantage of this trend. The focus must be more on recreational players. Besides the social aspect, which was undoubtedly the reason for the boom in the 80s and 90s, squash is a fascinating sport.
Squash also offers easily learnable variants like Squash 57. Various squash balls enable beginners to start playing quickly. Additionally, doubles squash, especially the hardball variant in North America, enjoys great popularity. The tools are available.
And let's not forget: squash is not just a recreational sport but can also be a competitive sport for ambitious players, with the possibility of participating in the Olympic Games.
Some also describe squash as a physical variant of chess. At a certain level of play, it is extremely difficult to make a winning shot without preparation. The opponent must be placed into a poor position through tactics, and then a winning shot can be made.
Conclusion
The potential for squash is there, and the solution is simple: federations that have so far focused only on elite players must include recreational players in their considerations. Many insiders often point out: 10,000 recreational players result in 1,000 club members, and this forms the necessary basis to produce a top 10 player in the world.
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