The squash Olympics debut: LA28 format, courts, and qualifying

Squash makes its Olympic debut at Los Angeles 2028, added to the programme in October 2023 after four straight Games turned it down. The squash Olympics event is two singles draws, men's and women's, played under the same rules the professional tour already uses: point-a-rally scoring to 11, best of five games.

The rejected bids before the squash Olympics breakthrough

Squash had been lobbying since the 1990s, losing in a slightly different way each time. At the 2005 IOC Session in Singapore, squash and karate were the two sports put to a vote for London 2012, and neither cleared the majority the rules demanded. For 2016, golf and rugby sevens took the two open places in Copenhagen. Squash then missed 2020 twice — beaten by the campaign to reinstate wrestling at the 2013 vote in Buenos Aires, then left out of the five extra sports Tokyo chose for itself. Paris picked breaking, skateboarding, sport climbing, and surfing for 2024.

What finally changed wasn't squash's case; it was the process. Host cities can now propose sports for their own edition, and Los Angeles wanted squash. The 141st IOC Session in Mumbai approved it on 16 October 2023, alongside cricket, flag football, lacrosse, and the return of baseball/softball.

What the LA28 squash event actually is

Two medal events: men's singles and women's singles. No doubles, no mixed, no team competition — even though doubles is a Commonwealth Games fixture.

The draws are smaller than the sport expected: squash was planning on 32 players a side, and the IOC's final athlete quotas set it at 16 per gender, 32 athletes in total. That's four rounds to gold — round of 16, quarterfinal, semifinal, final — plus a bronze-medal match. No group stage, no second chance. A world number one can lose one match on a tight referee call and be done for four years. It's on the Universal Studios backlot in Los Angeles.

The Olympic squash match format: PAR-11, best of five

Under PSA rules — the ones that govern the professional tour — every rally is worth a point, whoever served it. Games go to 11 and must be won by two, so at 10–10 you keep going: 12–10, 14–12, the occasional 17–15. There is no cap. Matches are best of five, first to three, which is where squash's reputation for attrition comes from: a five-game match at that level regularly runs past an hour with almost no dead time in it.

The rest is court geometry and interference.

• Serve. Start from either service box, then alternate boxes after each rally you win. The serve has to hit the front wall between the service line and the out line and, unless the receiver volleys it, land in the opposite back quarter.
• The tin. The out-of-play strip along the bottom of the front wall is 48 cm on a standard court and in women's professional events. The PSA men's tour drops it to 43 cm, which makes attacking drops and kills far more viable. Which height LA28 uses hasn't been announced.
• The court. 9.75 m long and 6.4 m wide, front-wall out line at 4.57 m, back wall at 2.13 m — the same squash court dimensions you already play on.
• Interference. Both players share the same space, so the referee has three answers to an appeal: let (replay the rally), stroke (point to the obstructed player), or no let (rally to the opponent). Professional matches use a three-referee panel that votes.

None of that is Olympic-specific, which is the useful part. PAR-11, win by two, first to three is the identical scoring your Tuesday club league runs, so a medal match is counted exactly the way your match is — Squash Scoreboard is a squash scoreboard app for iPhone and Apple Watch that tracks match scores, and the format it counts is the format LA28 counts.

PAR-11 versus the old English scoring

Anyone who played before the mid-2000s learned a different game. English scoring — hand-in, hand-out — let only the server score, so a rally won as receiver bought nothing but the serve, and matches ran long and unpredictably.

	English scoring	PAR-11
Who can score	Server only	Either player
Game target	9, receiver picks 9 or 10 at 8–8	11, win by two, no cap
Match length	Best of five, highly variable	Best of five, more predictable
Used today	Some legacy club and league play	PSA events, WSF international, LA28

The men's professional game got there first and by a longer road: point-a-rally to 15 from 1989, then 11 from 2004, with the women's tour switching in 2008. For the mechanics in full, the squash scoring explainer covers tiebreaks and game balls, and the squash rules piece covers serving order and lets.

How the squash world ranking system feeds qualification

The PSA world ranking is a rolling 12-month picture. Points come from how far you go in an event and how big the event is, and results age out as the year turns over, so it measures recent form rather than a career total. Skip two months and you slide without losing a match.

World Squash and the PSA have published the qualification system, and it fills each 16-place draw five ways:

• World ranking — 8 places, the largest single route.
• Continental Games — 5 places, one each from the African, Asian, European, Pacific, and Pan American Games.
• Final world qualifying tournament — 1 place, from a 24-player event in June 2028.
• Host country — 1 place for the United States.
• Universality — 1 place for an eligible national Olympic committee.

Country limits are tight. Only two or three nations per gender will get two athletes; everyone else is capped at one. That matters in squash more than most sports: Egypt has held a large share of the top ten in both rankings for years, and an uncapped draw could plausibly run a quarter Egyptian.

Glass show courts and why the venue is the point

Squash's pitch to the IOC was never really about participation numbers — it was the all-glass portable court. Four transparent walls, spectators on every side, cameras anywhere, and a white ball instead of the usual black one so it reads on screen. These courts have been bolted up in front of the Pyramids of Giza and inside Grand Central Terminal, and a movie backlot in Los Angeles sits squarely in that tradition.

FAQ

Is squash an Olympic sport?

Yes, from 2028. The IOC approved squash for the Los Angeles Games at its session in Mumbai on 16 October 2023, and it will be the sport's first Olympic appearance. Bids covering the four previous Games were all turned down.

How many games is an Olympic squash match?

Best of five games, first to three. Each game is played to 11 under point-a-rally scoring, and a game tied at 10–10 continues until one player leads by two. There is no tiebreak cap.

How do players qualify for the Olympic squash draw?

Each 16-player draw is filled five ways: eight places off the PSA world ranking, five from the continental Games, one from a final world qualifying tournament in June 2028, one host-country place for the United States, and one universality place. No country can enter more than two players per gender.

Where will squash be played at LA28?

On the Universal Studios lot in Los Angeles, on a purpose-built show court. Portable glass courts are assembled on site, so squash can be staged almost anywhere with a flat floor and enough headroom.