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Perhaps it was a poor decision by the referee in my favour. It might well have been a complete mishit by me, which just scraped above the tin and became a lucky winner. Perhaps my opponent tripped and fell at a crucial point, which gave me the easy put away.
What would then happen, would be that deep down, something would tell me that I didn’t deserve it. That I didn’t win the rally by playing good squash, or building a rally, or even hitting a great winner. That it was just a bit lucky and that I hadn’t earned it.
Again somewhere deep down, this would trigger a bit of sympathy for my opponent, and would just cause me to take my foot off the gas a tiny fraction. If you’d have asked me was I feeling sorry for my opponent, I’d have said “of course not”, but somewhere inside me, the bit of luck had affected me and my attitude to the opponent and the match. There is a real danger that from having a bit of luck here, I would make a few uncharacteristic errors, or not scramble as hard as I possibly could when out of position. This could cost me the match.
Now, let’s reverse the roles for one moment. It’s 9-9 in the 3rd set and 1-1 in games (11 PAR). Your opponent frames it comes off the side wall, then just makes it above the tin for a clean winner, 10-9 to him game ball. Do you think they are thinking “Not sure I really deserved that. I’ll go a bit easy this rally”? Of course they are not. What they should be thinking is, “I’ve had a piece of luck at a crucial time. I must make the most of it!”
This is exactly what you should be thinking when a stroke of luck comes your way. You can bet that probably on a few occasions in your squash playing life, you’ll be in a big match which you’ve worked really hard for, and you are in good position. Through no fault of your own, you’ll end up losing because you’ve been unlucky. Therefore, it’s really important that when you get the luck you cash in on it, and make it pay or, there was no real point in you having it in the first place.
You can extend this thinking to bigger swings of fortune. You’ve never beaten your opponent before, but she walks on court with an obvious injury. She’s just not moving quite as well as she normally does. This ordinarily would make the difference between winning and losing.
Now think back, have you ever played when unfit, unwell or just really exhausted, and got beaten by someone you really shouldn’t? Well did your opponent give it to you that day, because you are the better player usually? No.
So this is your chance. You have to redouble your efforts to win this match, exploit the weakness, and make the most of your fortune, because you can bet when it goes against you, your opponent will not be taking it easy on you.
