Racquetball: Just a different version of Squash?
Racquetball is an interesting sport; it is very similar to squash but seems to be a combination of squash and handball. This combination produced a new sport that has grown very popular over the years. From humble beginnings in the 1940s to become a sport played in many countries, racquetball has strived to make a name for itself and distance itself from squash. For some reason the sport has continued to live in the shadow of squash and as squash is known all over the world, racquetball needs to expand and find its own identity to become a completely differentiated sport. Maybe in the future we will see a surge of racquetball and it will become more popular than the sport of squash.
Racquetball was invented in the 1940s by Joseph G. Sobek in America. Sobek was a professional tennis player, a squash player as well as playing handball. He seemed to be dissatisfied with the types of indoor sports that were available and he wanted to find a way to make handball easier on his hands. He started to use paddles instead of his hands and effectively invented a new game in the process. He called the game ‘paddle rackets’ and it combined the rules of both squash and handball. As the sport started to become popular, Sobek decided to use a racquet instead of a paddle and designed a smaller, shorter racquet than squash. People started to play the sport but the ball turned out to be a problem and so the intrepid Sobek designed a ball to his specifications and even went so far as to set up a company to produce balls to his exact needs, (Active Force Inc., 2010). Over the years, racquetball associations were set up and in the 1970s the sport saw a huge surge in popularity and in 1974 there were 3 million players in the US. The Ladies Professional Racquetball Association was set up in 1980 and in 1981 the first racquetball World Championships were held. By the year 1998, there were 10 million racquetball players in America alone and a further 14 million players worldwide. This number has inadvertently grown over the years.
Even with the large number of people who play the sport all over the world and its popularity, the sport still seems to be extremely similar to squash. Both sports use racquets, both use small round balls, both are played in indoor courts and both sports have similar rules. If one looks at handball, the biggest difference between it and both squash and racquetball is that hands are used instead of racquets. That one difference pushes the sport to a different area of comparison but two sports that are almost identical and use racquets cannot be helped but be compared with each other. There are certain differences between the two sports though. The racquet used in racquetball is smaller and shorter than the one used in squash, the ball is also smaller in racquetball and unlike squash does not slow down during a rally. The courts are slightly different in both sports and in racquetball hitting the ceiling is allowed, unlike squash. The final differences between the two is that squash games are scored to 9 or 11 but racquetball games go to 15 and the way that players serve is also completely different in both sports, (Difference Between, 2010). These differences to the average sports fan are not that great and are too subtle to make them two different sports. To the casual viewer, racquetball and squash look like identical sports or slight variations of the same thing. What has made the sport so popular over the years, why did racquetball players not just play squash which is very similar to it?
Racquetball is a sport that currently needs something drastic to really differentiate it from squash; it is surprising that it has become so popular when it is essentially a slightly different version of squash. Other similar sports like this come to mind, basketball and netball, pool and snooker, rugby and American football. But each one of these sports has become very popular on its own and racquetball is following this tradition, it just needs to find a global superstar and a marketing programme to lift it out of the shadow of squash and find its own identity.
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