ENGLISH EFFICIENCY EGYPTIAN ELEGANCE?


areas of the court and which shots they will use to set up the rally, but these patterns are not immediately obvious with many Egyptian players.


Not many Englishmen would dare to get behind the driver’s wheel on the streets of Cairo. The reason being that there seems to be no predictability to the manoeuvres that the drivers use in that city. Mumbai and Sao Paulo are probably comparable, and in contrast to the neat and tidy patterns of British roads, for the most part anyway!


However, what seems like chaos to the British makes perfect sense to natives from Cairo. I have found myself trying to work out playing patterns by watching and analysing Ramy and Mohamed with the same lack of success as I have navigating Egyptian roads.


Reality Moving out of the stereotypes and into the real world will always show you that on paper these assumptions make sense, but in reality everyone knows that every player is unique.


If every individual has their own personality and character it should be the aim of every coach to bring out their character positively on a squash court. There is an art form in sport and it should be expressive.


Daryl Selby plays differently to Peter Barker even though they went to the same school at the same time, have been coached by many of the same coaches growing up, and lived only miles apart as they developed through the junior ranks.


Following the success of the Egyptians in recent years, English players have adapted and made changes to their own games in order to deal better with the challenges that have been presented. The speed of the modern game has meant that English players will probably no longer be taught so strictly to


of the Egyptians in recent years, English players have adapted and made changes to their own games in order to deal better with the challenges that have been presented.


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play off the ‘correct’ foot. In a modern squash match players just don’t have the time to play to a textbook style. The success of James Willstrop demonstrated this in New York in January when he beat the ‘big three’ one after another to win the Tournament of Champions title.


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Perhaps we also miss an important point. Is the Egyptian success of recent years due to them having learned something from the English? It is well known that the Egyptians always had great racket skills and flair but were fragile in other areas. A better understanding of consistent training and perhaps some methodical rally building may have been the piece of the jigsaw that they were missing and which they have now implemented successfully to improve themselves. The new scoring system has also definitely rewarded the attacking style, so there is more to their success than initially meets the eye.


The bottom line is that any successful player will need to be open-minded enough to look at other players and wise enough to choose what would best suit them in an effort to improve. It doesn’t really matter where you are from because you will have to learn from and adapt yourself to everyone else around you.


Nick Matthew, Ramy Ashour, Amr Shabana and James Willstrop will next compete in England at the ROWE British Grand Prix, Europe’s leading world tour event, which will be staged in Manchester from 15th – 20th September.


INTERNATIONALSQUASHMAGAZINE September 2010 | 15 www.isportgroup.com/InternationalSquashMagazine


Following the success


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