The serve and the return are the two most overlooked shots in club squash. Every rally starts with them, yet most players treat the serve as a formality and the return as an afterthought. Give these two shots the attention they deserve and you start a huge share of your rallies already in front.
The serve: free position, if you use it
The serve is the only shot in squash you play with no pressure and all the time in the world. There is no incoming ball to read and no rush. That makes a loose serve inexcusable — and a good serve one of the easiest advantages in the game to claim.
The goal of a standard serve is not to win the point outright. It is to push your opponent into the back corner and take the T yourself. A well-placed serve does three things at once:
- It reaches the back. A serve that carries deep forces a return from the cramped back corner, exactly where options are limited.
- It clings to the side wall. Width matters as much as depth. A serve that hugs the side wall is far harder to volley cleanly than one that drifts toward the middle.
- It lets you take the T. Because you serve from the box, you have to move to the middle afterwards. A good serve buys you the time to get there before the return comes back.
The lob serve
For most club players, the high lob serve is the most reliable weapon. Hit softly and high onto the front wall, it floats up, brushes the side wall, and drops steeply into the back corner. Because it is slow and high, it is awkward to volley and easy to misjudge — many returns off a good lob serve are weak or missed entirely. It also gives you plenty of time to settle on the T. If you only master one serve, make it this one.
The return: neutralise first
On the return, resist the temptation to go for a winner. The server has taken the T, so your first job is not to attack — it is to get back to neutral. The safest, most effective return is usually a straight drive to a good length: take the ball back down the same wall it came from, deep into the corner, and force the server off the T to retrieve it.
A tight straight return does two things: it denies the server an easy next ball, and it starts to prise them away from the middle. From there the rally is even, and you have given nothing away.
Handling the tough serve
When the serve is genuinely good — deep and clinging to the side wall — do not force a straight drive you cannot hit cleanly. This is exactly the situation the boast exists for. Taking the ball into the side wall gets you out of the corner and resets the rally. It is not a weak choice; it is the right tool when the serve has done its job.
- Watch the serve early. Track it off the front wall and move your feet to it rather than reaching. A late, stretched return is almost always loose.
- Volley the loose serve. If the serve floats toward the middle, step in and volley it. Do not let a poor serve become a comfortable one by letting it drop to the back.
- Recover after the return. Whatever you play, move back toward the T. The return is the start of the rally, not the end of the exchange.
Why the first two shots set the tempo
Squash is a game of rhythm and position, and the serve and return are where that rhythm is set. Win them consistently and you spend more of the match on the T, dictating play; lose them and you spend the match retrieving from the back. Because both shots repeat every single rally, small improvements compound quickly — this is some of the highest-value practice time you can spend. Grooving a reliable lob serve and a tight straight return, then recovering to the T each time, is exactly the kind of repeatable pattern that SquashRT's training is designed to build.
The takeaway
Do not give away free rallies before they have started. Treat the serve as a real shot — deep, wide, and followed by a move to the T — and treat the return as a chance to neutralise rather than to gamble. Master the first two shots of the rally, and you will be amazed how many points are half-won before the real exchange even begins.