In the recent RacquetX webinar titled "Game, Set, Match: Understanding the Modern Racquet Sports Consumer," served as an introductory event for the upcoming RacquetX festival in 2025. RacquetX promotes itself under the title "A world-class festival and celebration of all racquet sports." However, in this webinar, the focus was almost entirely on tennis, pickleball, and padel, with squash receiving minimal attention. This imbalance is both surprising and concerning, especially given squash's well-established presence in the global racquet sports landscape.
RacquetX Miami Event Overview
The inaugural RacquetX event was held this year in Miami, with the next edition planned for March 22-24, 2025. In the first edition squash was notably underrepresented. One of the few participants advocating for squash was U.S. No.1 and PSA Board member Amanda Sobhy, who had a 'fireside chat' on stage with RacquetX founder Robyn Duda. Sobhy expressed her frustration, stating, “It was all really cool, but as a squash player my reaction was, ‘What the ***, squash? This is pathetic!’” She highlighted the missed opportunity for squash, saying it was “really, really sad that no one in the squash world cared about this when it was a massive opportunity to showcase our sport alongside padel and pickleball.”
Squash's Responsibility in Seizing Opportunities
There is a vacuum in squash, and no one is stepping forward to take charge of opportunities like this. RacquetX provides a massive platform to promote squash in a commercial and public setting, but whose responsibility is it to make sure squash takes advantage of this?The fact that there was no squash court at the first RacquetX event in March, despite squash being confirmed for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, speaks volumes. With such a massive milestone for the sport, and the event taking place in the same country where squash will be played at the Olympics, it was a glaring omission.
The Growth Hype Around Pickleball and Padel
The main discussions during the RacquetX webinar centered on pickleball and padel. According to the World Padel Report 2024, issued from the International Padel Federation there are only 71 facilities with 227 padel courts in the USA. The Global Padel report 2024 issued by Playtomic, is mentioning 82 facilities with 454 padel courts. By far not the numbers of Squash in the US with over 3,600 squash courts. It is surprising that such disparity was not acknowledged. Hopefully, RacquetX will realize that, with the exception of Europe and Argentina, squash has globally a much higher density of courts than padel. Special programs for squash during the RacquetX festival would definatly promote this event.
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