How to assess a squash player: a six-pillar method

Most squash “assessments” are a coach’s gut feeling after a few games. Useful in the moment, useless three months later. You cannot remember the number you never wrote down, and you certainly cannot show a player they have improved.

A real assessment is repeatable. Score the player on a small set of pillars, with a written guide at each level, so the same performance gets the same number whoever is holding the clipboard. Here is a six-pillar method built for squash, with anchored levels you can coach from.

The six pillars

Squash is decided as much by where a player is as by what they hit. A useful framework covers the strokes, but also the movement, the decisions and the capacity to repeat all of it under fatigue.

1. Technical. The strokes themselves: a tight straight drive to length, the drop, the boast, the volley, the serve and return, plus the kill and the lob. Quality of contact, racket preparation and how tight the ball runs to the side wall.
2. Movement and recovery to the T. Getting off the T early, lunging into the corners under balance, and recovering to the T between shots rather than getting pinned. This is the pillar that quietly decides matches.
3. Tactical and decision-making. Working the ball to length, opening the court, when to volley to take time away, when to attack short, when to counter-drop, and choosing straight over cross-court at the right moments.
4. Physical. Repeated lunging and change of direction, leg strength, balance in the back corners, and the endurance to hold quality across long games and a best-of-five.
5. Mental and competitive. Composure between rallies, focus through let and stroke decisions, patience to build a rally, and resilience when a game slips.
6. Match application. The real test: does any of the above survive a competitive match, with a moving opponent in the way and the score actually mattering?

Anchor every level with a written guide

A score is only as good as the words behind it. Rate each pillar 0 to 10, and write a description at each level (or at least at the key bands) so the number is anchored to observable behaviour. Senior-anchored is the honest way to do it: a 10 is what a strong competitive player looks like, and a junior or improver sits where they genuinely sit, with room above them to grow into.

For movement and recovery to the T, that ladder might read:

• Level 4: reaches most balls but arrives late and flat-footed, and is slow to leave the corner, so the T is often surrendered.
• Level 6: recovers to the T after most shots, but is a step late under pressure and gets pinned when the opponent volleys.
• Level 9: leaves on the opponent’s contact, lunges and recovers to the T under control, and is rarely caught out of position even in a fast rally.

Now the number means the same thing to everyone, including the player. Anchoring is what turns assessment from an opinion into something you can compare across coaches and across time.

Let the player assess themselves

Have the player score themselves on the same six pillars. Then compare. The gap is where the coaching is.

A player who rates their length a 9 when you have it at a 5 is over-trusting a loose ball that keeps sitting up in the middle. A player who rates their movement a 4 when you see a 7 has lost belief and is hanging back when they have earned the right to take the ball early. The number tells you what to work on; the gap tells you what to talk about.

That conversation, held over a shared framework rather than a vague chat, is often worth more than the scores themselves.

Turn the weakest pillar into a goal

An assessment that does not change what you do next is just admin. Take the lowest pillar, or the lowest skill within a pillar, and turn it into a development goal. If length is the weak link, the goal is concrete: “hit 8 of 10 straight drives past the service box and within a racket’s width of the side wall by the end of the block.” Then your next sessions are planned from that goal, not from a drill you happened to fancy.

Assess, set the goal, plan the work, deliver, reassess. That loop is what turns a score into progress.

Reassess and show the movement

Run the assessment again at the end of the block, around every 8 to 12 weeks. Always show then versus now, on the same pillars, on one picture. Seeing the radar grow is motivating for the player, reassuring for a parent, and proof to you that the plan is working, or a signal to change it.

Once you assess this way, planning gets easier, parent conversations get concrete, and “how good is this player?” stops being a question you have to answer with a shrug.