Comparative movement analysis of the winners and the losers of the rallies in squash.

Introduction. Squash is a very competitive sport and at the highest playing levels of the game players are forced to move intensively around the court. In previous studies some authors reported that winners of the game covered a greater distance during the time when the ball was in play. These findings led the authors to conclude that individual game analysis might not be the best indicator of a player's overall performance. The aim of this study was to examine the distance covered by winners and losers at the rally level. Method. Top Slovenian players were recorded with a fixed video camera. Altogether 1048 rallies were ana- lyzed by the sagit/squash tracking system and separated to four different time related categories. A paired sample t-test and a non parametric Wilcoxon signed ranks test was used to compare rally winners and losers in terms of distance covered. Results. Rally losers covered more distance during the very short, short and medium rallies than rally win- ners (3.22m-2.78m, 10.16m-9.34m and 23.54m-22.67m, respectively). It is likely that winners controlled the playing situation most of the time in these rally categories. However, during the long rallies losers covered a similar distance to the rally winners (56.78m-56.17m). This could be due to the proportionate time spent in a stable situation ie no player having an advantage over the other. Consequently, it would seem that the dura- tion of time whereby the winner of the rally had dominance and thus made the loser of the rally move a greater distance was so small in comparison to the overall rally duration. Conclusion. These findings provide clearer information on movement patterns during rallies with the data suggesting that the endpoints of the rally are characterised by more movement by the loser of the rally in com- parison to the winner of the rally.

Research paper presented at the International Scientific Conference of theoretical, methodological and methodical aspects of competition and athletes’ preparation, Belgrade, Serbia, December 2009.