BetterSquash / Projects / Thought Experiments / Experiment 02

If you could change, adapt, remove or add a rule that would benefit your squash, what would it be and why?

Reddit Squash Thought Experiment 02

This thought experiment was originally posted to r/squash on 1 July 2026 and is summarised here, with the original thread still open for comment.

The Question

I'm not asking about squash in general, nor the professional game. Not even what would make it better on television or easier for referees. I'm asking about your squash: the rule that, if changed, would make you a better player or the game more enjoyable for you personally.

Players who choose a serving rule usually struggle with the transition from serve to rally. Players who'd change the let system often rely on physicality over positioning. Players who'd add something entirely new, a second serve, a shot clock, a no-let zone, are often thinking about the game more creatively than their results suggest. Your answer reveals which part of the game you find most frustrating, most unfair, or most limiting, and frustration usually points at a weakness worth addressing.

The Results

7Upvotes 53Comments

Notes

This one didn't split cleanly into clearly defined groups, but I'm not even sure I was expecting that. The answers were quite varied, and several were serious proposals rather than one-word picks. The pattern that did repeat was fairness. Weight handicapping, minimum or maximum court temperature, ball type by skill level: most of the rule changes were really attempts to neutralise a specific physical mismatch (age, size, heat tolerance) rather than complaints about how squash itself is played.

Serve dominance came up more than once too. A few players wanted the outcome of a rally to depend less on who served, which says something about where club-level matches actually get decided.

What People Said

A selection of replies from the thread, lightly trimmed for length.

"Squash needs a weight handicapping system. Young skinny people need an equaliser to make it fair for the rest of us."
Carnivean_ · 1 July 2026
"Make a rule that allows the weaker player to choose whether to use a single dot or double dot ball. Let skill and fitness decide the outcome rather than just temperature physics and the pace of play."
Seshsq · 1 July 2026
"I would have a maximum temperature on court. A lot of the time in my country it's less about skill and who can remain standing the longest while it's 30-plus degrees and humid."
Exciting-Use-7872 · 1 July 2026
"I would allow blocking, maybe static blocking, basketball-style without hands... I'd prefer a world of all Asals and rallies being decided by clever interference more often, rather than attrition almost exclusively."
No_Leek6590 · 1 July 2026
"It is annoying the hell out of me where most matches are decided by the quality of the backhand return. So my idea would be to find something that diminishes the deciding factor of serves."
DifficultFig8335 · 1 July 2026
"You cannot win a point with the serve, it's a let. Similarly, you cannot win a point with the serve return, unless it's long. This little rule encourages getting into rallies and trains you to work on improving your default serve return."
MigrantP · 3 July 2026
"A cross nick gives 3 points. My life gets 300% easier."
Proseller_56 · 4 July 2026

Read the full thread, all 53 replies, on r/squash ↗

My Take

Phillip Marlowe · BetterSquash

Honestly, I thought a lot of replies would be about Lets, Stokes, Interference etc. That seems to be something discussed a lot on forums and after matches. But it didn't really feature as much as it did.

What stood out is how few answers were really about the fairness; nearly everyone was reaching for a way to neutralise a specific physical gap rather than change how squash is actually played.

That might be worth a separate piece on handicapping at club level, since several of these are already informally solved by good club culture like handicap ladders rather than a rule change.

THINK.
ABOUT.
SQUASH.

This page recaps one entry in the Reddit Squash Thought Experiments series, a monthly question I post to the squash subreddit. These aren't trick questions or coaching lectures. They're designed to get club players thinking differently about their game, spark honest discussion, and occasionally reveal something surprising about your own squash.

There are no right answers, nor wrong ones. Just squash players thinking about squash.