UNORTHODOX III.: OLLI TUOMINEN

What a great hold and deception by Olli Tuominen to finish off this rally! Tuominen is a very special phenomenon on the PSA tour, a lonely guy from Finland who's been top 20 for about a decade, has beaten the majority of the top players (quiet a few of them more than once or twice). Tuominen's playing style is very physical - okay, I hear you guys saying that squash in general is very physical, but still there are players who move like a panther, and others like a terminator. Olli is rather from the latter type. Also his racket-preparation, his backswings are a fraction too hectic compared to the average of the pro players. All this sounds like a slight lack of squash culture (lack of education in junior times maybe). However, there are a couple of things that compensate for all this. First of all, Tuominen's fitness and athletic capabilities: you will not want to go for a little jogging with Olli in the snowy forests of Finland: it will take easily two to three hours and the speed will be more similar to a 1500 race - you'll end up left far behind, lost, starving and freezing in that forest. So you better stay on the squash court if you get to train with him. But there then you'll have to cope with his ultra fast pace and his surprisingly good deception. It's strange, as he looks less fluid compared to the average top player, but maybe this is exactly what gets him to disguise the deception; you would expect basic shots form a robot-like mover, and indeed he'll play straight twenty times in a row if he has to, but then still ends up hitting accurately chosen and unorthodoxly executed volley-drops and trickle-boasts at the right times. Welcome to 'No Let! The Squash Video Blog', Olli!

THREE NICKS ON THREE DIFFERENT SHOTS IN A ROW: JULIEN ILLINGWORTH

After a couple of badly chosen cross-drops shown in this blog in the last couple of weeks, let's get back to a successful one, executed by Ramy Ashour. Nevertheless, I am above all referring to this rally for another special reason: Julian Illingworth managed to hit three nicks in a row with three different type of shots: the first at 0:12, a defensive slow-high boast from the right back corner - his only chance to stay alive was finding the nick; the second, at 0:14, an over-head volley smash into the front right-hand corner nick, and at last, at 0:17, a backhand drop into the nick - what a demonstration of exceptional skills, and still not enough to win the point against Ramy Ashour!

REACTION DROP I. : JULIEN ILLINGWORTH

The reaction drop in general is played on the volley, and more on the backhand than on the forehand (Palmer is a master of this cut drop on the volley, and Lincou plays it great too). In the bellow rally Julien Illingworth's reaction drop is not played on a volley, it's a normal drop off a not too effective cross kill by Hisham Ashour. To drop off a kill in itself is already rare and special, but the most interesting is Illingworth's racket-preparation: it's a full backswing executed at full speed. You would expect a drive or a kill with this racket-preparation as it is very hard to control a drop with such racket-head speed. This makes it definitely one of the best cut slice drops to be found on the internet.