The squash equipment we use today has gotten a lot better.
I was reminded of this by a great old video you can check out here on SquashZAG that shows Mohibulla Khan and Geoff Hunt engaging in a long, old-style point that involved less shot-making than you would see today and more attritional back-and-forth play. The difference of course is in the rackets they used then and the rackets we use today, which among other things have higher racket-head speed and larger sweet-spots. I can remember playing hardball way way back when with a (in hindsight perfectly ridiculous) metal racket that was significantly heavier than normal. This racket was soooo heavy and made of non-breakable metal, and thus it was great for a guy (that would be me) with very little money, because it would last a really long time. It was only after several months, when I realized my wrist was developing tendinitis, that I threw out the still-unbroken racket. I think that was the one and only time I ever threw out a racket that had yet to break.
Happily, racket technology has advanced. We also used to build up the top of the racket with tape in order to reduce the possibility of breakage as we scraped the racket head along the wall; nowadays, not many people do this, because the racket heads come with sturdy build-ups and don't seem to need it like they used to.
Another important advancement has been with shoes. I can remember limping home after a tough match, filling the bathtub with water, and soaking my feet for a half hour or so. I would then take a razor and cut out the bumpy calluses and blood blisters that had developed on my soles, sometimes shearing off 2-3 square inches of hardened skin at a time.
My wife, a psychologist, was concerned....
I told her I wasn't sick, just in love.
