The trouble with doubles

I first tried doubles squash about five years ago and only because my entry fee to the tournament was waived. "Free squash tournament? Count me in!" Then they showed me the court we'd be playing on. It was freakishly large. I remember thinking that my partner was going to have to cover a lot of court but luckily I was partnered up with Stalony (inside joke:). Anyway, I got hit on the first rally of our first match by a fellow who I now know is notorious for this, (his name shall go unmentioned), and I was a convert. (Patrick Ow. Oops).

A couple of tournaments later my partner Debi and I managed to win a match and we were actually asked to referee. That was the first time I was introduced the doubles scoresheet. Wow! Holy confusing Batman! If you've marked on that sheet, first used in, oh, 1972(?), you know what I'm talking about. The lines were so small and the games were hard to distinguish between. Was I marking the second game for team two while scoring the first for team one? Luckily, (and this is what I love the best about doubles), there were lots of old pros hanging around to help us muddle our way through.

Fast forward to the 2008 BC Doubles and, lo and behold, the score sheet is still the same old confusing sheet of hieroglyphs. I decided to stop moaning and to do something about it.

I have redesigned the doubles score sheet so that even those new to the game can follow it and keep track of the score. This sheet is based on the existing horizontal format, not the new vertical format (can you say "singles score sheet"?) that has just been released by the WSF and Squash Canada, and, for that reason, I'm not going to include a scoring sample or "how to".

This sheet is version 3 and I expect that I might tweak it some more as comments come in from our local squash gurus. Please feel free to download it HERE and make use of it. Use it in your tournaments and replace our logo even - all I ask is that you please keep the copyright text on all copies you produce. Cool?

Thanks to Scott S, Marvin M, Rick K, Gerry T and Rip for their critiques.

Don't forget to let us know what you think of the new design.


Next week: "What's up with all those provincial squash association logos?"