On Saturday night in Canberra, something remarkable happened as more than 1000 people rose to their feet and cheered at the top of their lungs after witnessing an amazing sporting contest. What was remarkable was that the setting was the Royal Theatre.
The combatants were an Egyptian and a Frenchman, the tournament was the Australian Open – and the sport was squash.
Squash – the much maligned sport that almost everyone will tell you is doomed.
Yet when Egypt’s Ramy Ashour and Gregory Gaultier of France walked off court, after a semi-final featuring almost two hours of brilliant shot making, unparalleled athleticism, high drama and at times hilarious interplay between the players, the crowd and the referee, no-one who was there could possibly accuse squash of being dead.
The next day even more fans watched the finals – Ashour against England’s Nick Matthew, and an enthralling women’s decider between Ireland’s Madeline Perry and England’s Alison Waters.
This was the finest squash seen in Australia since the early 1990s, while the tournament was broadcast live around the world both via traditional television and pay-per-view internet streaming.
Despite all the gloss of the tournament, there can be no denying that squash is struggling in Australia, at the same time that it is booming in Asia, North America and the Middle East.
Its struggle in Australia is largely due to the delivery method, the result of the sport’s massive boom from the 1960s to the 1980s, when thousands of centres were built by private businessmen rather than by government or non-profit organisations.
Unfortunately for the sport, these centres were often in prime business districts and during the property boom of the 1980s and ‘90s, the courts were worth far more as development sites rather than as sporting facilities.
Many of the courts that weren’t bought by developers were taken over by gyms, who quickly realised you could get more income putting 15 spin cycles in a squash court than you could by hiring it out by the hour.
Once thriving centres were gradually stripped of courts and squash, the sport that produced Australian superstars like Heather McKay, Geoff Hunt, Ken Hiscoe, Michelle Martin and Sarah Fitz-Gerald began its decline.
Can the decline be stopped? Many people think it already has.
Traditional privately owned courts will continue to close, but they are already being replaced by new courts in local government and community multi-sport venues.
New technology has meant court construction is now cheaper than before, while movable walls allow courts to be folded away to the side of a hall, making the space usable for other indoor sports.
Better technology also means television can now capture the sport far better than in the past, particularly on an all-glass court like the one used in Canberra last week.
New scoring rules have also encouraged players to attack more, meaning it is very rare to see the seemingly endless rallies down the backhand walls that we used to. (Although the second rally of the men’s final went for 117 shots, both players attacked throughout and every part of the court was used during the point.)
A Forbes magazine survey in the US found that of all the sports, squash was the healthiest to play – that is you benefited more from a 30 minute hit of squash than from any other sport.
The Australian Open will be in Canberra for three more years. I hope that by this time next year people are talking about squash’s rebirth, rather than its death.
I hope that one of the networks decides to clear some space on one of their new digital channels to broadcast at least the finals.
And I hope that Australian sports fans are talking about our new stars, like Kasey Brown, Donna Urquhart, Ryan Cuskelly and Zac Alexander.
I will probably be disappointed, but at least last week in Canberra gave me cause to hope.
* Nick Matthew beat Ramy Ashour 16-14, 11-7, 12-10 in the men’s final, while Madeline Perry downed Alison Waters 11-5, 12-10, 6-11, 4-11, 13-11 in the women’s.
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