I was talking to my brother the other night about racquet breakages in tennis. It quickly moved on to squash, then on to junior squash, then finally on to just funny stories about squash from back in the day.
With my brother having had a bit of a 'temper' as a junior, I asked him what his record was in regards to racquet breakages. Now he was, (IS), a bit of a madman on court and always drew a crowd. If I had half a dozen people watching my matches, on the court next to me my brother would have 50+ people watching him!
After informing me that he often broke racquets in solo practice (yes that's right, it was only him on the court), I asked how many racquets he'd broken in a year. The answer? 30. I attended most of his tournaments and I'd say 30 is being conservative.
Although I didn't have much of a temper, I remember one time I really wanted a new grip on my racquet. I kept asking Dad if I could have a new one and he always said that I didn't need one and that it wasn't dirty enough. Wasn't dirty enough? Later that week I promptly took my racquet into the carpark at the squash club and rubbed as much dirt as I could on it. It was filthy. Needless to say I got myself a new grip that night!
Another time when I still had an aluminium racquet, I really, really wanted to upgrade to a graphite racquet. So one day I went on court to do some solo with my double shafted, aluminium racquet and pretty much went psycho. I don't know how many times I smacked that racquet on the wall it just wouldn't break. After about an hour of 'solo' practice, it was seriously bent but still not broken. It just wouldn't break so I had to endure that sh***y racquet for a while after that.
Oh, and last year my brother borrowed my racquet for a 'friendly' hit at the local club. Yeah, that racquet ended up in 3 pieces.
