Game Times

by Dan and Joe Kneipp
All content © 2002 Squashtalk

Dec 13, 2002

A police escort with flashing lights and sirens blaring rush players to the squash venue in Antwerp . (photo: ©2002 Dan Kneipp)

It is the player’s responsibility to make sure that they are ready to play their match, regardless of any circumstances. If the referee announces the start of your match, and you’re not on court ready to play within fifteen minutes your match is forfeited and your opponent gets a free ride into the next round.

So with the follow on system of starting times, there’s many factors to be considered including how long you expect the matches before you to take, how long it takes to travel from the tournament hotel to the venue and how much time you need to warm up properly prior to your match.

The average time of a men’s game is around 50 minutes or so. The time will vary depending on what stage the tournament is at, and who is playing. If Palmer is playing Power in the semi final that will be a much longer match than if White is playing a qualifier in the first round. But the quickest matches are around 30 minutes, and the longest matches about 100.

So if you’re playing in a tournament with ‘follow on’ starts and you’re the 3rd match, with the 1st one beginning at 4pm you know you’ll be walking on court some time between 5pm and 7pm. The worst case scenario of this is if a player before you forfeits due to injury, particularly early in the match. It creates the situation where two matches can be over in 40 minutes. So it’s wise to be ready at the courts early just in case something goes wrong.

Another consideration is how long it takes to travel from the tournament hotel to the venue. In Qatar the trip is around 10 minutes. The recent Qatar Classic had the Women’s World Open held at the same time. So there were two 32 draw tournaments being played simultaneously on only three courts. Which meant for some long days and some absurd scenarios with the follow on matches. When the first match is 1pm, and you are the sixth match on, it makes it very difficult to work out when to be down at the courts. This is tackled by frequent phone calls to the tournament desk to get updates on the match progress. We had some unnecessary heart flutters when the person manning the squash desk at Qatar didn’t have a very good grasp of the English language. At one stage when we didn’t expect to be on court for at least an hour and a half, he told me that Kneipp’s match was about to start. This obviously caused an immediate panic attack wondering if we could race to the squash venue within the allocated fifteen minutes. This turned out to be a false alarm.

In Antwerp the first two rounds were played at a venue that was about 10 minutes drive from the hotel. The Egyptian player Amr Shabana made an error when working out the time of his first round match. He was relaxing in his bed contemplating a short sleep when fellow Egyptian Omar Elborolossy sent him a text message saying his match was starting. Shabana had to be on court ready to play within 15 minutes.

Peak hour traffic in Antwerp can be ridiculous. Easily a big enough problem that players could be caught in a bad traffic jam and miss their match through no direct fault of theirs. Obviously if Shabana has only left the hotel at the start of his match, it would be no one’s fault but his own if he was forced to forfeit.

But the organisers in Antwerp have thought of everything. Instead of just having a simple shuttle service that transports the players, they have involved the local council and police. The player’s van is escorted by two police motor cycles with sirens blaring and lights flashing. They work in tandem so that one blocks off upcoming intersections while the other stays with the vehicle so that it is nearly impossible not to have a smooth traffic-free ride. This was how Shabana was able to make his match with a few minutes to spare (although he hurt his arm slightly from being poorly prepared).

I was playing in the same tournament when it was considerably smaller a couple of years ago. I lost my match and had returned to the hotel to shower and stretch. I had made plans to meet a couple of mates for a beer back at the venue. The only shuttle that was available also had the police escort. I was the only person in the van. So the poor people of Antwerp were being forced to pull their cars off the road and stop at intersections so that I could be rushed through the traffic… to meet some mates for a beer. I didn’t know whether to feel embarrassed, or like I was an important dignitary. If there is a better way to travel to meet some mates for a beer I don’t know what it is.