Squash Coaching Tips - Serving Lesson
Serve and Return
What - Serve, from either side of the court
Why - to start a squash rally, and put pressure on receiver
Assessment - important phase to see the ability of your pupils.
Facing the side wall, throw the ball, out of hand, and lob the ball over your head. Demo this, but not too many teaching points, this is just to assess your class.
Demonstration
Right Handed Coach - serve forehand from left hand side, with the pupils positioned behind you on the same side. Make the serve a good slow easy serve that all pupils can achieve with practice, not a full county standard speed drill into the back!
Left Handed Coach - server forehand from the right hand side, with puplies poistioned behind you on the same side.
Rules. Interact with pupils to see if they know all the rules about a legal serve. Feet position, where the ball must land
How
Body - facing the back corner of the serve box
Bat - half back swing, face open, strike from underneath, full follow through
Ball - throw ball over your leading foot, strike underneath (lob serve). Aim the ball high onto the front wall.
The lob serve is the best one for your pupils to learn initially.
Lesson Progressions
4's Practice - 4 pupils involved
2 servers and two catchers, 1 ball. Server A serves, Catcher B retrieves the ball and passes it to Server B, Cather A catches. Award points for good serves.
Tactical Serve
Line up pupils away from the service box, each pupil takes it in turn to come up and serve. As soon as they have served, they move to the T position, watching the ball at all times. Server becomes catcher and so on. Pratice both sides.
Demonstration
Demo the return.
Body - open stance. facing towards front wall, watching the ball with the server.
Bat - ready position, but not waving in the air (we've all seen it)
Ball - watch ball, maybe a volley, maybe a bounce and a drive, aim for back corner
Ask a pupil to serve to you and make it look "easy" for the class to follow.
2's Practice - serve and return
Pupil serves, pupil returns. Server becomes the receiver, and receiver joins the back of the queue. Change sides.
2's Practice - 3rd shot
Pupil serve, then a return is made, then server has a 3rd shot
Conditioned Game
5 stokes including the serve, the server loses if the receiver "defends" or wins.
This could be 3/4 court, full court or half court.
Squash Serve Rules
At least one foot must be in the serve box, not touching any of the lines, and must remain there until you strike the ball. It can be just a part of the foot (does not have to flat). The ball when served must be above (not touch) the service line. This is the only time the line is used within a rally. It must be in court, not hitting the out lines of the court. The first wall the ball must hit is the front wall. It cannot hit the side wall first. After hitting the front wall, it can hit the side wall or back wall on the other side of the court, but it must land in the opponents "quarter".
Tips
Pick where you want your ball to hit on the front wall. You do not want hit the side wall too early and give an easy drive, or miss the sidewall and give an easy volloy.
Throw the ball up the same each time you serve - it'll make your serve more accurate.
Watch the ball as you hit it and keep your body/head still as you follow through. Then you can move off to the T. Keep watching the ball and your opponent as you move the middle of the court.
