Analysis of Sport Order (Squash/Badminton)
Date: 2005-02-19
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Revision History:
rev PA1, 2004-04-25: Written by Hans. First version.
rev A, 2004-04-28: Added the warming up aspect
rev B, 2005-02-03: Added the "practical flow" aspect
rev C, 2005-02-19: Added the "tradition" aspect and extended the conclusion section.

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ASPECTS:

1) Fairness.

1.1) The Leverage Advantage. A squash superiority has more "leverage" on the point difference than a badminton superiority. Most people seem to agree that squash is the sport in which it is easiest to win by 21-0. When two elite squash players play against each other a single point can often continue for a minute or more. This indicates that not even the best players find it easy to kill the ball against each other, which makes it easy to understand that it is really difficult for a mediocre squash player to gain any points at all against an elite player (if not even his fellow elite partner can kill the ball, how would it then be possible for a mediocre player). In badminton, on the other hand, even the best players relatively easily miss one or two shots since badminton is generally played with smaller margins (many shots are close to the line as well as to the net). This means and advantage for specialist squash players over specialist badminton players in the sense that a certain difference in standard often leads to a bigger difference in points in squash than in badminton.

1.2) The Exhaustion Advantage.
Squash before badminton means an advantage for squash players over badminton players since they get the opportunity to wear out the specialist badminton players before their favourite sport. This works in two ways: (A) A specialist squash player generally has a more economic way to move on the squash court and will come out from the squash court less tired than a mediocre opponent. This gives him an advantage in the badminton set. (B) If the squash set is tight enough to make both players tired for the badminton set this will work against the specialist badminton player since stamina will then play a bigger part in the badminton set than technical ability.
1.2.1) Symmetry? The rationale is, of course, similar for the reversed order. For the same reasons badminton before squash would give the badminton specialist an "exhaustion" advantage. But it can be argued that the comparison is not entirely symmetric since the squash sets normally tend to contain longer rallies and wear out the players to a higher degree. The nature of squash (at least on the elite level) is often more of a "marathon" or at least "medium distance" nature while badminton is more of a sprint nature. This means, on average(!), that a squash set tires people more than a badminton set. Therefore, specialist squash players have more to gain from having squash first than vice versa. Anyone would agree that it is worse to have to run 200 meters after having run a marathon than vice versa.

2) Order pedagogics. It must be considered a great advantage in terms of the marketing of our sport if it is easy to explain and remember the order of the sports.
2.1) Small to big rackets. The order TT-BA-SQ-TE can easily be explained as moving from smaller to bigger rackets.
2.2) Small to big courts. This is often how the present order (TT-SQ-BA-TE) is explained. It can be argued, however, that we are playing "Racketlon" and not "Courtathlon" and that therefore the racket aspect above should be considered more important. Furthermore, even-though a badminton court has a bigger area than a squash court taken as a whole, the area that a badminton player has to _cover_ (i.e. his half side of the court, which might be regarded a more relevant measure) is, in fact, significantly smaller than the one the squash player has to cover; It is 6,7x5,18 compared to 9,75x6,40.

3) Let worries. Squash is the game with the most disagreements. (Let/NoLet/Stroke). In tight matches this problem is likely to increase towards the end of the match simply since the perceived importance of the points will get bigger. This can be used as an argument for playing the squash set as early as possible. (In matches that are not so tight, however, the opposite should apply; If one of the players get an irreversible lead in the beginning of the match the importance will decrease and the perceived importance of the points will be biggest in the beginning of the match.)

4) Feeling. Some players argue that a consistent movement from lighter to heavier rackets would make the shifts between sports a little easier to control. Other players feel that the ability to make difficult shifts from one racket sport to another is at the heart of our game; they might argue that there is no need to make it easier for people, rather the opposite.

5) Warming Up. Some people feel that squash is a better warming up game than badminton. From this aspect it is an advantage that squash comes before badminton. But it might also be argued that the table tennis set (and indeed other forms of warming up before that) should provide sufficient opportunity for warming up to take on badminton.

6) Practical Flow. In most sport centers, at present, the table tennis is played in near vicinity of the badminton. In these centers it often gives a better practical flow of players if badminton and not squash is played directly after table tennis. The obvious reason why tt and ba often are close is that tt is often played on courts normally used for badminton. A quick (unscientific) survey of the tournaments on the 2004 tour indicates that the order "ba-sq" would improve the flow in most centers (although often marginally and in some cases the order is completely irrelevant). In the survey below the following notations are used:
"ba-sq" = the flow is better with badminton before squash
"sq-ba" = the flow is better with squash before badminton
"irrel" = the order between squash and badminton is irrelevant for the flow
in addition, one or two exclamation marks (!!) have been used to indicate the importance

Swedish Open, Stockholm, ba-sq
Canadian Open, Toronto, ba-sq!
British Open, London, ba-sq
Finnish Open, Lahti, sq-ba
D'Hondt Open, Oudenaarde (Belgium), irrelevant
Bulgarian Open, Sofia, unknown (squash played last)
Scottish Open, Monifieth, ba-sq
German Open, Weiterstadt, ba-sq!! (tt and ba in separate hall)
English Open, London, irrel
Gothenburg Open, Gothenburg (Sweden), irrel
The World Championships, Vienna, irrel

6) Tradition. The order tt->sq->ba->te has a long tradition in Sweden. (It goes back to the time when a "racketlon match" consisted of full matches in each sport according to the rules of each individual sports, which mean that it was played over two full days with two sports during each day. Since squash was considered the most physically demanding and tt the least demanding these two sports were grouped together during the first day while the other two sports were played on the second.) But if one goes back to the first signs of true racketlon in Finland in the mid Eighties the order was tt->ba->sq->te...
6.1) If it ain't broken don't fix it. Squash before badminton is a firmly established order that has been around since racketlon first turned international in 2001. People have grown used to it.

CONCLUSION

Balance of aspects. Squash before badminton gives specialist squash players a relatively big "exhaustion" advantage to be added to their existing "leverage" advantage. If the order were reversed one of these two advantages, a weakened "exhaustion" advantage, would instead go to the specialist badminton players. It might be argued that the leverage advantage balances fairly well against a weakened(!) exhaustion advantage. At least in comparison with the present situation with both the leverage and a heavy exhaustion advantage on the squash specialist's side. Furthermore: the order pedagogics aspect clearly speaks in approval of badminton before squash. So does the "practical flow" aspect. In fact, none of the four aspects of Fairness, Pedagogics, Let worries, Tradition and Feeling speaks really clearly in favour of the keeping of the present order. The Warming Up aspect does - but how strong is that argument?

Therefore, the aspects brought forward in this analysis seem to indicate that badminton before squash would be a better order, in terms of fairness, practicality and pedagogics. But it all boils down to how much weight one attributes to each of the arguments. None of them is arguably really heavy which might make the "If it ain't broken don't fix it" argument stand out as decisive to some people...

 

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