How to hold a squash racket — and swing it cleanly

How to hold a squash racket comes down to one grip you never change: a handshake grip with the V on the inner edge and the hand high near the butt. The index finger spreads up the shaft like a trigger, and the face sits slightly open. Same grip covers both wings.

How to hold a squash racket: four checkpoints

Set the face before the hand. Stand the racket up with the strings perpendicular to the floor, holding the throat with your free hand, then take the handle. Grab it off the floor instead and you build the grip around whatever angle the frame was lying at.

Find the V. The crease between thumb and index finger runs down the inner edge of the handle — the edge pointing back at you when the racket is out in front. On an octagonal handle that's roughly the top bevel, a touch toward the backhand side of where a tennis player would put it. The strings should end up a few degrees open, not square.

Spread the index finger. Slide it up and around the handle so a knuckle of gap opens between it and the middle finger. That spread gives you feel for the face angle and lets you hold the wrist cocked without strangling the grip.

Hand high, pressure low. The heel of your hand sits close to the butt cap. The WSF caps racket length at 686 mm (27 in), and you want all of it when you're digging a ball out of a back corner. Hold loosely between shots, firm up through contact. A hand clamped tight all rally kills touch at the front.

One squash grip, both wings

Tennis players rotate the hand between wings because the ball sits up and the job is spin over a net. Squash asks for the opposite. You're lifting a dying ball off the floor over a tin that stands 48 cm (19 in) in standard singles — some professional events use a lower one. An open face is the default on both sides, so one grip serves both.

Pace makes the case too. A drop and a counter-drop at the front can be a second apart, with the racket arriving from wherever the last shot left it. There's no window to rotate your hand. The frames differ for related reasons — see squash racket vs tennis racket.

	Squash	Tennis
Grip changes in a rally	none	routinely, stroke to stroke
Default face angle	slightly open	square to closed
Hand position	high, near the butt cap	varies by stroke
What the face must do	lift the ball over the tin	drive it over the net

Squash swing technique: preparation, cocked wrist, contact

Prepare early. The racket goes up as the ball leaves the front wall, not as it reaches your feet. Head above shoulder height, elbow off the ribs, shoulder turned toward the side wall. Late preparation is the most common reason a shot lands short in the middle.

Hold the cock. A cocked wrist puts shaft and forearm in a rough L, and that angle stays through the downswing. Arm and shoulder deliver the racket; the wrist doesn't release until the ball has gone.

Contact in front. For a right-hander the ball meets the strings level with or ahead of the front foot — left foot on the forehand, right foot on the backhand. Contact behind that line and the face turns across the ball, which is why late shots drift to the middle.

Squash forehand technique

Step across with the left foot, shoulder turned, racket up. The elbow leads, the racket head lags, then releases through a contact point off the front hip. Keep the elbow away from your ribs — an arm pinned to the body has nowhere to travel but across the ball.

Squash backhand technique

Same grip, no adjustment. Contact sits further in front than on the forehand because the shoulder joint is on the far side of your body; if it feels early, it's probably right. The non-racket arm goes back for balance.

Two squash grip technique faults that stall beginners

The tennis forehand grip. Rotating the hand behind the handle shuts the face. Forehands end up in the tin, and the backhand needs a rotation the rally gives you no time to make. Test it: without moving your hand, shadow a backhand. If you have to turn the grip to make it feel normal, it's a tennis grip.

The wristy flick. Uncocking the wrist for power is the other one. It produces wild height on the front wall — long one rally, tin the next — and no disguise, since the shot gets decided at the last instant by a joint that can't repeat itself. Shadow swings holding the L fix it, as does a basket of drives where the only target is height.

The two feed each other: a closed face tempts you to flick the ball up to rescue it.

Grooving it: the squash straight drive

The squash straight drive audits both at once. From mid-court, send the ball parallel to the side wall to land behind the service box, aiming a foot or two above the tin so height rather than power carries it to a length.

Read the misses. Into the tin means a closed face at contact or a wrist that broke early. Floating out to the middle means late contact. Dying short means the front wall was hit too low for the pace you used. Twenty drives a side, alternating wings, teaches the grip faster than thinking about it — solo training drills are built around this, and better length changes which shots are open to you.

Once length off both wings holds up under pressure, rallies start turning into points worth recording; Squash Scoreboard is a squash scoreboard app for iPhone and Apple Watch that tracks match scores.

FAQ

Do you change grip between forehand and backhand in squash?

No. One grip covers both wings. Front-court exchanges leave no time to rotate the hand, so the grip is a compromise that keeps the face slightly open on either side.

Where should my hand sit on the squash handle?

High, with the heel of the hand close to the butt cap — that's where reach in the back corners comes from. Choking down costs you the last half-step of coverage.

Can I use my tennis grip for squash?

Not without trouble. A tennis forehand grip closes the racket face, which sends balls into the tin and forces a hand rotation before every backhand. Shift the V a bevel toward the backhand side and one hand position works on both wings.

How tight should I hold a squash racket?

Loose between shots, firm through contact. Constant tension deadens touch at the front and tires the forearm by the third game.