SquashSkills favourite Jesse Engelbrecht is back in the spotlight for our featured content this week, with an exciting new series looking at ‘angles of attack’.
Although good strategic squash tends to involve a lot of straight hitting to contain our opponents and limit their options, using different angles in our attacking play can be a great way to introduce variety to the game and really start catching people out through ‘stretching’ the width of the court.
It’s important to only introduce these angles at the right time however, and this is what Jesse drills down into in this series with an examination of both the technique and the tactics of attacking with angles. There’s always the danger of opening the court up to your opponent if you become too gung-ho with your attacks, so use this playlist to start to learn not just the ‘how’ of using angles, but also the ‘when’.
Jesse gives his usual insightful commentary throughout, examining in-depth all of the ‘angle’ shots such as boasts, cross-courts, and volley nicks, backed up by a great collection of clips of elite PSA players hitting an array of breathtaking shots – the majority of which, unsurprisingly, tend to come from Egyptian players!
The purpose of this blog is to give you some ideas of drills and practices you can use to start exploring the use of attacking angles in your game and help you really start adding some of these elements to your shotmaking arsenal.
We’ve put together a selection of brand new solo and pairs sessions for you to try, built around the technical and tactical areas you’ll need to focus on to master attacking with angles. Click through the links to check them out, and make sure to watch the whole series of Jesse’s videos before you start – most important of all though, get out there on-court and have some fun with it!
Put it into practice
This session is based around a selection of solo exercises to help you practice some of the technical tips Jesse outlines in his video commentaries.
This pairs session uses a series of drills and routines to build your familiarity with using angles from within a rally base.
This second pairs session is based around a progression of conditioned games, to allow you to really start applying some of the themes and ideas of the playlist into a realistic match-based context.
To use angles effectively, you’ll need to work on being quick onto the ball – this speed bolt-on session is a great place for you to start.
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Let us know how you get on with the sessions, we’d love to hear your feedback!
Haven't seen the full playlist yet?
The series covers a range of shots including boasts, drops, drives and kills. If you’re looking to add variety to your play and want to understand when it’s appropriate to open up the court, be sure to check out this excellent playlist from one of our favourite coaches!
Watch the playlist in full