Masters Reaction to PARS to 11 Proposal
At the first Regional Masters event of the season PARS was
accessed writes Martin Pearce
To the Squash. Some very, very
high quality matches and PARS. I have to state here, we did an analysis.
Virtually every match scorecard was “PARS-ED” afterwards. Horrible reading
for squash lovers. ALL matches except for a couple of 9/0 9/2 9/0 jobs
were AT LEAST 33% shorter, e.g. one match - 79 rallies to finish the match
on PARS instead of 126 for the actual. In one case and completely
coincidentally, it involved yours truly, the match on PARS to 11 would have
been over in just 20 minutes, in actual fact the real match took 67
minutes!.
My opponent, one Geoffrey Howes Esq., is one of the best exponents of
comebacks, so at 2/9 0/9 5/8 he no doubt would have been very p***d off
at that exact moment as he would have already been in the dressing room if
PARS had been the scoring method. 40 odd minutes later, the score was 8-8 in
the fifth and the gallery really had their monies worth, 10 match balls
before the victor emerged. Not that, in the grand scheme of things, it did
me much good. There was a long discussion afterwards and unless I am
mistaken, the vast majority of Masters want to keep the normal scoring.
Has Tennis changed? No!! It’s a political decision and it has not been
trialed properly yet for amateur enthusiasts. I spoke at length to a friend
of mine who used to train with the person who actually introduced PARS, one
Gawain Briers, and he categorically stated it was only introduced for
Professionals, to lengthen their playing careers, shorten their matches for
their health and TV and a bit more besides. It was not introduced for
Masters, who need all the exercise they can get. Anyway, AW is emailing all
the players registered with the following:
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