t. To the contrary, you must charge
forward instantly (even when your opponent's shot is heading toward the
back wall) or else you will never be able to catch up to it as it comes
rebounding off the back wall. Many a shot off the back wall is played
from a position closer to the front wall than to the back.

HISTORY OF SQUASH TENNIS

Squash Tennis is one of the few racquet and ball indoor sports that can
be termed honestly and strictly "American" in origin, whereas Squash
Racquets has its roots in England going as far back as the 1850s. The
game spread to America in the 1880s and the first real organized Squash
Racquets play was in 1882 at St. Paul's Prep School, in Concord, New
Hampshire.

Eventually some of the boys there experimented with a Lawn Tennis ball
and liked the fast rallies and liveliness of the action. Consequently an
exciting offspring was born, Squash Tennis.

Toward the turn of the century, Stephan J. Feron, of New York became
fascinated with the possibility of the speeded up version of Squash and
has been given the credit for creating the lighter Squash Tennis racquet
and the famous (or infamous) inflated ball with the knitted webbing
surrounding the regular cover.

The last decade of the 1800s saw, therefore, two Squash games being
played. Very quickly, however, Squash Tennis became more popular and
widely played than Squash Racquets because of the more exciting pace and
action of the play. Private courts were built on estates owned by such
millionaires as William C. Whitney and J. P. Morgan. The famous Tuxedo
Club, Tuxedo Park, New York, installed the first formal Club court in
1898. By 1905, the Racquet and Tennis Club, Harvard, Princeton, and
Columbia Clubs in Manhattan had courts, as did Brooklyn's Crescent A. C.
and the Heights Casino.

In 1911 the National Squash Tennis Association was founded and organized
by the banker, John W. Prentiss, Harvard Club of New York. The following
year inter-club league competition was started in New York City--56 years
ago! The sport also gained popularity and some limited play in other
cities such as Buffalo, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, but the real
nucleus of activity was pretty much confined to "The Big City."

The halcyon days of Squash Tennis were the 1920s and 1930s. Such names
as Fillmore Van S. Hyde, Rowland B. Haines, Thomas R. Coward, William
Rand, Jr., and R. Earl Fink dominated the amateur ranks during the Golden
Twenties.