THE FADED KILL II.: by MIGUEL ANGEL RODRIGUEZ

For once nothing extreme - except that little horizontal clearing at 0:03 - from the lovely Miguel Angel Rodriguez, just some very smart squash. First a good, wide, greatly pounded backhand cross-court at 0:14 that bounced off hardly from the backwall, forcing the loose length from Lincou. Secondly, a perfect faded kill into the sidewall. The faded kill is a subtle weapon. I for example have not seen, not understood the existence of it until Professor Marcus Berrett has once pointed it out to me. This shot has been one of the main weapons of Jonathon Power, he has been initiating a large part of his attacks with this shot. What's the point? What's the difference compared to the 'real' kill? You hit it less hard (70-80%), slightly higher, less riskier over the tin, with emphasising the slice, and instead of looking for a quick second bounce you want to make sure that the ball fades into the sidewall with not leaving your opponent a chance to take the ball before it bounces on the wall (as the ball is still too quick for it) or to hit it after the bounce off the sidewall (as the ball is already on a down-course close to the floor). This shot does not have to be a straight winner, the goal is rather to make your opponent scrap off the ball the sidewall loosely. Well, JP or Rodriguez might both be magicians, but they employ also less fancy stuff in order to create situations where they can exploit their creativity. This is squash: a subtle mixture of intellectual engineering and instinctive magic.

NO LET! Post Nr.100 - PRAISING JONATHON POWER

There's unfortunately too little to find about Jonathon Power in an acceptable resolution on YouTube. But even the mediocre image quality does not disable us to appreciate his genius in the below rally. I've pointed out in the past a few times how effective Karim Darwish's extremely compact racquet preparation is in terms of generating deception. Well, the inventor and godfather of the compact backswing was indeed Jonathon Power. Observe how close he keeps the elbow all the time to the hip, you never know if he is going for a drive, a boast or a drop, therefore the opponent is so often wrongfooted, just like Amr Shabana at 0:56. But there's more to observe here, for exemple the concluding backhand drop: even though Shabana was far in the diagonal back corner, knowing his speed, Power made sure to raise the racket head high enough to threaten with a drive or cross-court which made Shabana stuck at the 'T'; as this example shows it too, compact racket preparation does not mean that the racquet head is not up! And the third thing that is pretty apparent in this rally, is in fact the other famous weapon of Power: the faded kill into the sidewall, you can see it at 0:14, 0:16 and at 0:37 on the volley; it's not a real kill, as played only with half-pace and a lots of cut to make sure that the ball does not bounce off much the sidewall. In general terms it's interesting that Power often hits even the drives not too deep, bouncing around the top end of the service box; he wants to avoid the overhit drive that rebounces off the backwall and gives plenty of time to the opponent to hit the ball, he is rather obsessed with making the opponent scrapping off the ball from the sidewall. To put it in one sentence: the great stuff about Power's game is that it's a very intense mixture of shot-making and preparative shots - and on top of that, due to the uniform compact racquet preparation, you never know which one to await.


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FADING THE BALL INTO THE SIDE-WALL: GREGORY GAULTIER vs. JONATHON POWER

Here we have a nice example of the faded kill into the side-wall: Jonathon Power's serve bounces off loosish both the side- and the backwall, the ball is also high enough to hit it in a straight line downwards just above the tin, but the distance is too far to hit the ball with full pace, as as a consequence it would risk to rebounce farer off the frontwall and also higher off the ground (and make it easier to return for the opponent), therefore Gregory Gaultier is opting for the reduced-paced sliced kill fading it towards the sidewall. Interesting to observe how many times Power and Gaultier look to fade the ball into the sidewall with different kinds of shots, not only the kill. These two know maybe better than any other player that hitting the ball tight on this level is not enough, it also has to fade with the right speed and at the right spot into the sidewall.

A VIEW TO A KILL: JONATHON POWER

I would have thought there's not much to say about the shot called 'kill'. A 'kill' is a 'kill', it's mainly hit off a loosish ball around the service box (or very near to the front-wall), it can be straight or cross-court. It's not a sophisticated shot, even club players are capable to employ it, in fact, at certain levels, some enthusiast beginners think it's the only shot to be used on a squash court ('bang bang'). Nevertheless, on higher levels, it's slightly more complex than this; there is a version that we might call the 'faded kill' which in general is not hit with maximum pace, rather with a more open, sliced racket head, and it is not necessarily intended as a winner but rather as a preparative shot to make the opponent scrap the ball off the side-wall. We are going to show a couple of examples for this preparative 'faded kill' in the near future, Jonathon Power used to initiate the majority of his attacks with this shot, but for now let's start with one that ended up being even an immediate winner. It was a quality rally finished by the 'faded kill' (and preceded by a great lob that forced the loose shot from David Palmer), but the first frames showing Power's mimics are at least as valuable. Being one of the all time greats of squash and next to it such an excellent actor (or naturally just such a nice crazy lad)  means the spectator buys one ticket and gets two type of hilarious shows!