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If you have lost control of the T, it is usually because your length is too short, particularly when hitting from the rear court. It is important to be aware of the length of your drives when playing so that you can make adjustments to your next shots immediately rather than wait for your coach to tell you between games.

This pen and paper exercise will help to make you more aware of your length when you next go onto court. It will also give you a benchmark of your performance. You will need some recent video footage of yourself playing, in preferably a close match when you are under pressure, a court floor diagram drawn on a piece of paper, and a pencil.

You simply watch the video and put a dot on the paper where the ball lands for all of your straight drives from behind the short line into the back corner. You always have the pause button if you can't keep up with the play! You will end up with a 'scatter diagram' which will give visual impact as to the length of your lengths.

It may be that your forehand drive is generally shorter than your backhand which may direct your practice in your next coaching session. If you use a different diagram for each game, does your length get shorter as the match progresses? You may need to work on your fitness or concentration.

Doing the notation can be a bit tedious... but interpreting the results is the exciting part as this could affect a long term change in your squash behaviour.

Once you get the hang of it you can extend this further by putting a 'dot' for a straight drive and an 'x' for a cross-court drive. Another progression is to mark a 'v' if your opponent volleys the ball rather than let it bounce. This will give an indication of how tight your shots are!

In essence by completing even the basic exercise it will make you more aware of what is happening with your length in the heat of a match. See how you get on!