I think I am ditching tennis for racquetball...

[Patrick_St]

I can't really find anyone to play tennis with here in Wausau, WI, so I am going to start playing racquetball instead. At my local YMCA there are plenty of people who play racquetball and every Tuesday from 4:00PM to 7:00PM they have what is called "challenger courts" where people get together and everyone takes turns playing with eachother. It is a great way to meat new people and have a good time.

Some of the advantages of playing racquetball are that you don't have to worry about bad weather and can play any day you want to. Also, it is easier and much more enjoyable to play alone than tennis.

I would love to still play some tennis this summer, but like I said, I am having difficulties finding a hitting partner. I thought my younger brother who is 18 now would play with me, but he is busy doing other things. Oh well, racquetball is still fun.

Also I have heard from some of the new people I met playing racquetball that a lot of people in the Navy play racquetball, which is obviously a plus for me personally as I have recently enlisted with the Navy. I wonder if they have racquetball courts on the aircraft carriers; I will have to ask my recruiter.

Anyways, does anyone else play racquetball consistantly? I think it is sort of neat because even if you are an amazing athlete, a sixty year old man can beat you in racquetball.

 

[crash1929]

saw some squash today at the club. taking a break from basketball. its a wonder that they don't hit each other with those raquets! lol. Wonder if it is much different than raquetball, I know its more of an elitist sport.

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

Great to hear that racquetball is still popular in some parts of the US. I first tried it more than 30 yrs ago and played quite a bit during its heyday in the 1980s (and early 1990s). It's been about 15 yrs since I last played. It's not very popular in this part of CA any longer.

Since I was already playing tennis & badminton left-handed, I decided to try to learn to play racquetball right-handed to minimize impact on the other 2 sports (muscle memory confusion). This worked out ok when I was playing against beginners (and low intermediate players). However, as I started playing better players, I found it necessary to switch to playing left-handed. I used a combination of tennis strokes and badminton strokes to execute racquetball shots.

You can probably get away with primarily using your tennis strokes to play racquetball (unless you have a 2-handed tennis BH ). You'll probably want to eventually learn a proper racquetball BH. After a while, you may also want to modify your FH stroke to make it more of a racquetball FH. Since topspin is not as important in racquetball as it is in tennis, you should not use extreme grips (such as the Western FH grip). You'll need to develop a low FH kill shot (which is hit fairly flat).

saw some squash today at the club. taking a break from basketball. its a wonder that they don't hit each other with those raquets! lol. Wonder if it is much different than raquetball, I know its more of an elitist sport.

I've only tried squash a few times. I am confident in saying that squash is much more difficult than racquetball for a beginning player. In fact, both badminton & racquetball are much easier for beginners to master than either squash or tennis. However, to achieve a high intermediate or advanced level is challenging in any of these 4 racquet sports.

 

[bluegrasser]

Try putting something in your local paper - " Looking for a hitting partner etc..

 

[hollywood9826]

Try using craigslist to find a hitting partner. Some people have had luck doing that.

I doubt they have actual courts on carriers, I was in the Air force so was never on one. But the actual military bases usually have plenty of courtrs around and the base will have ladders set up, so theres always people to play. And depending on where you get stationed you should not have any problems finding a tennis aprtner.

 

[hollywood9826]

saw some squash today at the club. taking a break from basketball. its a wonder that they don't hit each other with those raquets! lol. Wonder if it is much different than raquetball, I know its more of an elitist sport.

I dont know much about squash, but I believe RB the ball travels a bit faster than squash so the rallies are longer. Squash is apparently one of the better calorie burning sports because of this fact. On a official squash court theres no ceiling and there are outline on top of the walls. The back wall is shorter than the front.

Personally for me I would prefer to play squash over RB. RB is gonna be faster with crushing hard flat at a premium. Squash will be more of finesse game where you set up your shots to win points.

 

[Patrick_St]

The only thing that worries me about racquetball is tearing up my knees. I feel like racquetball is even worse for your knees than tennis. I am still young, but I don't want to end up with bad knees when I am older.

 

[crash1929]

dumped tennis for basketball this summer. maybe playing some squash at the club. hit a little and its pretty cool. the damn ball doesn't bounce so you have to move to it. could be a good work out.

 

[fps]

what is racquetball? i am a big squash fan, you burn more calories playing 40 minutes of hard squash, so the research says, than any other sport, though that may be "any other sport you can feasibly play in a lunchbreak".
http://www.squashplayer.co.uk/sp_latest/forbes_survey.htm
it's viciously physical.

 

[tacotanium]

quash is the #1 healthiest sport? and racket ball isn't even on the top 10. aren't they the same?

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/sportSkills

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racquetball
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squash

quash is the #1 healthiest sport? and racket ball isn't even on the top 10. aren't they the same?

Altho' squash & racquetball share many similarities, they are quite different. They require a somewhat different skill set even tho' ESPN article (link above) lumps them together. The racquets used for racquetball are nearly 1/2 foot shorter than squash racquets (the latter is similar in length to tennis racquets). The courts are also different but the most significant difference is probably the ball.

The ball used for racquetball is vry lively while the balls used for squash are very small and are very unlively. The liveliness of the racquestball ball makes it a much easier game to play than squash, particularly at the beginning & intermediate levels. Less movement is required to get to most balls in racquetball. If needed, a player can flail at the ball in racquetball and still keep it in play -- the squash player must make a more deliberate stroke to keep a troublesome ball in play. Also, there no "kill shot" in squash as there is in racquetball due to the nature of the front wall design.

When I first picked up the game of racquetball, I got an excellent workout. It was easy to learn & I was running all over the place to get to the ball. As I improved and learned the nature of the game and the way the ball moves around the court, I was playing much more efficiently and no longer got the high level of calorie expenditure that I enjoyed as a novice. Once a player learns how to play balls on the back wall, and learns how the ball moves around the court, they find that they do not need to move around the court all that much for many shots.

I would say that the endurance, agility and hand-eye coordination factors for squash are somewhat higher than they are for racquetball.

 

[max]

I like squash quite a bit more than RB. Badminton, too, can be fun. Of the three, squash, I feel, does help my tennis.

 

[plasma]

I love how the OP mentioned that an old man can beat a younger one. Skill over technique is always a mental turn on for me!
I have to make a strong vote for tennis though. The subconcious zen thing which takes place before hitting a forehand is unique. To me it truly represents the weight of the racquet and the spiritual weight of the universe itself taking over the will of man....
When I hold my racquet I am david against Goliath. It's really some epic crap. The more I turn into a rat in the rat race; the more I appreciate the love and joy that is tennis. I would hate to be indoors, away from all 160 Mayan Tennis Gods....