www.tennisindustrymag.com

E ven before the COVID-19 pandemic forced the shut-down of indoor racquet facilities, squash visionar-ies, in their quest to grow

the sport, were already bringing a revo-lutionary concept to fruition: open-air, outdoor squash courts. Could outdoor play pivot squash to a new future?

In the long term, Robert Gibralter doesn’t see how squash can live without outdoor courts. Gibralter, an artist-in-residence at Maspeth Welding in Queens, N.Y., and his longtime squash partner, Jeffrey Anschlowar, president of Maspeth Welding, fulfilled their dream and opened an outdoor steel-walled squash court last spring at the company’s 45,000-square-foot facility.

The court, conceptualized and designed months earlier, has become a showroom for pros to test out.

“It was a hunch that it would be a good business,” Gibralter says. “It’s quite inspiring for a lot of people.”

More than 80 top pros, along with college players, who were thrilled to wield their racquets in the sunshine, provided overwhelming positive reviews of the court’s playability and design. The innovative court prompted lively conversations and insightful posts on social media and squash blogs, and Maspeth Welding has received a stream of inquiries about building courts from schools, clubs and indi-viduals from all over the world.

“Outdoor courts have always been of interest, but now that’s become an essential, rather than a ‘nice to have,’” says Ryan Wall, one of four directors of Public Squash, a nonprofit dedicated

to increasing the sport’s visibility and bringing more players to the game.

With the help of supporters, Public Squash worked with the New York City Department of Parks to open the city’s first outdoor public squash court, a spe-cialty glass-walled court manufactured by ASB Squash Courts, at Hamilton Fish Park on the Lower East Side, in

SQUASH

Outside the BoxAn outdoor squash court in New York is drawing interest from players, and may be the future of the sport.By Georgetta L. Morque

2018. The court is free to use, and there have been free youth clinics.

“You can’t grow the sport in a base-ment,” says Wall, who finds club fees prohibitive for many potential new players. Currently, the court needs some repairs, which are expected to be completed by spring of this year.

Wall and his team are passionate

Racquet Sports

36 RACQUET SPORTS INDUSTRY April 2021

Charlene Neo and Campbell Grayson,

who recently retired from the PSA tour,

test the outdoor steel-walled squash court

with a glass back wall at Maspeth Welding in

Queens, N.Y.

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www.tennisindustrymag.com April 2021 RACQUET SPORTS INDUSTRY 37

players with full-time jobs. Their next project is to bring an outdoor court to Brooklyn Bridge Park.

“If more people play, it’s better for everyone,” Wall says, citing tennis as an example and how the growth of public courts changed the sport. Since COVID-19, more donations have been trickling in, and there have been more inquiries about play.

Both Wall and Gibralter attest to the value of exploring courts of dif-ferent surfaces that can be more cost-effective. They see outdoor squash

“You can’t grow thesport in a basement,”

says Wall, who fi nds club fees prohibitive

for many potentialnew players.

courts they’ve helped put into place as works of art well-suited to school campuses and club grounds. Gibral-ter visualizes embellishments, such as heat lamps, retractable roofs and landscaping in collaborations with architects and developers. Cooler temperatures shouldn’t be an issue.

“Bundle up, take off a layer and see the steam,” Gibralter says.

Recently a new seven-court out-door squash complex broke ground in El Salvador that will accommo-date a low-cost private training acad-emy and an urban squash program, Squash Para Todos, serving more than 250 youngsters.

Twenty years ago, Steve Polli of Polli Construction, a former touring pro from Scotland, built an outdoor concrete court in Leddy Park in Burlington, Vt., which continues to thrive. Fond of playing shirtless and wearing sunglasses, Polli sees out-door squash as more fun and more social and a natural answer for the squash community now.

Sparked by a pandemic and led by creative minds, outdoor squash courts are gaining momentum. �