Squash — To dive or not to dive?

They say that a swallow does not a summer make, but on the PSA World Tour, swallow-dives have been a feature of the autumn.

At one point during his 3–2 victory in the Qatar Classic over the World № 6, Miguel Angel Rodriguez, Joel Makin complained to the referee that Rodriguez was diving when in trouble, soaking the floor, then asking for a let a few moments later. (It should be noted that Makin is also adept at throwing himself around the court, but in contrast to the flying leaps of Rodriguez, favours more of a “tripod” movement, with legs splayed, and an arm to the floor for support and recovery. In the Commonwealth Games in Australia, this led to frequent stoppages due to what appeared to be an unusually non-absorbent court.)

You can see Makin’s point — the player on the receiving end is clearly on the threshold of losing the point — hence the dive — and even if they keep the ball in play and recover their footing — a skill which players like Rodriguez excel at — they are still in a weak position. But provided they can survive for, say, a couple more shots, such that the point opens up again and there’s a risk that either player could slip up on the wet patch, they can stop play and, in effect, are let off the hook. (The glossy, permeable type of kit which players wear these days presumably exacerbates the situation by releasing more moisture than the thicker material that was worn previously.)

Until recently, and in the above case, referees appear to have been allowing a let when either player appeals on safety grounds in this scenario. Frustratingly for Makin, at a crucial moment in his quarter final against Tarek Momen, when the score was 1–1, 10–10, he was the one who had to dive — he then appealed for the point to be stopped due to the wet spot on the floor, but the referee declined to stop play or allow Makin to claim a let.

As Makin said to the referee, there appears to be one set of rules on Monday, and a different set on Wednesday. The problem is that the actual rules of squash, the WSF World Squash Singles Rules 2014 (http://www.worldsquash.org/ws/rules-of-squash-2), are inexplicably silent on this subject. The closest thing you can find is something like the below:

“INTRODUCTION
Squash is played in a confined space, often at a high speed. Two principles are essential for orderly play:

Safety: Players must always place safety first and not take any action that could endanger the opponent.

Fair play: Players must respect the rights of the opponent and play with honesty.”

And:

“8 INTERFERENCE
8.1 After completing a reasonable follow-through, a player must make every effort to clear, so that when the ball rebounds from the front wall the opponent has: […] unobstructed direct access to the ball”

But the preamble about safety is vague, and the rules about interference are not really designed for this scenario — for example wouldn’t a stroke, not a let, have to be awarded against the player causing the interference (by diving and wetting the court)?

So what should be done in such instances? Squash appears to have decided on a “sticking plaster” approach, where “Refereeing Updates” are produced but not published. An update “is not a change to the rules but an update to provide information on how the game is to be officiated at PSA events, non-PSA events may use a different interpretation in some instances”.

The September 2018 Refereeing Update states that:

“PSA Initiative — Diving and stopping the rally after a dive

After much deliberation, it has been decided that going forward, the PSA will adopt the following only for PSA events:

o Any player who chooses to dive loses the right to stop the rally and ask for a let as they have altered the condition of the court and therefore accepted the playing surface.
o The striker must either stop immediately (before the next shot) and ask for a let or play the ball. Once played, the rally must continue as the conditions are deemed to have been accepted by both players.
o If the diving player hits a winning return, then a no let can still be awarded, even if the striker stops for safety.
o The referee has the right to intervene and stop play at any time should the conditions be deemed as unsafe.
Important: The process surrounding diving, described above, is a PSA initiative that will be reviewed by PSA on an ongoing basis, and is not part of the WSF process or included in the rules.”

There are a number of concerns with this approach:

• This is not the practice that is actually being applied — in many cases the striker does not “stop immediately (before the next shot) and ask for a let” — rather, they continue for at least a shot or two, to try and press home their advantage, and only ask for a let when the rally is back to stalemate, or play is moving to the slippy part of the court. A let is still awarded.
• Outrageously, despite the fact that PSA tournaments are marketed to the wider squash community (and to the whole world, via YouTube and so on), these “Refereeing Updates” are not even made publicly available — try finding them via an internet search! Who on earth thinks it’s a good idea to distribute these “Updates” only to referees, federations and PSA players?
• Is there any other sport on the planet where the paying spectator is unable to access the rules of the sport? This leads to ridiculous situations such as Camille Serme (in Dubai) and Diego Elias (at the British Open, when 2–0 up against Mohamed El Shorgaby) being penalised with a stroke merely for opening the door to speak to the referee (without leaving the court). The Elias case did not get publicised, but many spectators felt the Serme case was an outrage, as there was no time-wasting intent, and little or no basis for the decision in the rules of squash. Of course, there had been another “Update” which practically no-one had seen — but we are told that those updates are “not a change to the rules”, right?
• Do we need one set of rules for professionals (although we are told that the rules have not been changed…), and one for amateurs? The dimensions of the court and the dynamics of the game do not change much. In reality, the lack of money in squash means that many pros are really semi-pros, and there’s no clear line of separation from the top of the amateur game. Taking the current example, a wet court is a safety hazard for an amateur, just as much as for a professional.
• More broadly, when the rules do not appear to work, wouldn’t you expect a well-governed sport to engage in a proper consideration of the matter and promptly publish revised rules? There maybe be some internal politics or bureaucracy involved in making changes to the rules, but if so the proper solution is to bang some heads together, not to avoid changing the rules.

Returning to the subject of diving — a number of squash fans disapprove of the practice, or at least there are mixed feelings. On the one hand, the telegenic / photogenic effect of a rally featuring a dramatic dive is a useful marketing snippet for a sport striving to attract attention. On the other hand, diving disrupts the “natural outcome” of rallies and, if used excessively or cynically, could allow the diver to unfairly recover from disadvantageous positions.

Even if it was desirable to ban diving, it could be difficult to implement — how easy is it to distinguish premeditated dives from cases where a player trips up or loses their footing? But consider another match involving Makin, when Paul Coll lost a sticker off his racquet during their Commonwealth Games semi-final. After Coll had apparently won the point, the fallen object was noticed, and Makin appealed and was awarded the stroke.

So you get a stroke for an innocuous sticker, and a whole section of the World Squash Rules dedicated to “Fallen Objects”. In practice objects generally don’t fall to earth, whereas players frequently do, intentionally and unintentionally — but leaving aside the recent “Update”, the rules are inexplicably silent on what happens in the “wet patch” scenario.

An alternative idea would be a “halfway house” — e.g. a player is allowed to dive (make contact with the floor other than with their feet and, occasionally, hands), but as well as not being allowed to ask for a let, they cannot be awarded the point — i.e. they either lose the rally normally or, if they win the rally, they still only get awarded a let. Some players may still choose to dive in that scenario, so that we would still get some fancy photos and video clips, but the calculations would be different. (This would also seem to be a more appropriate outcome in the scenario of the harmless sticker which caused no real disruption to play.)

Incidentally, does diving actually help? Arguably the best mover of the last 10 years was Gregory Gaultier, who never seemed to have recourse to diving, and despite keeping his feet firmly on the ground, he seems to have done okay.

Finally, no piece about the art of diving would be complete without a mention of Aleksander Shilov, one of the first Russians to participate in PSA events, who is famous for spending nearly as much time flying through the air as running on two feet, and even developed a practice technique called “crazy ghosting” in his quest for the perfect dive:

https://www.facebook.com/aleksander.shilov/videos/922720181178040