Squash under the World Squash Singles Rules 2025.

The rule book

The current rules are the World Squash Singles Rules 2025, marked "Effective 1 September 2025 (Updated 14 June 2025 at the WSF Extraordinary General Meeting)". They replaced the Rules of Singles Squash 2024, which took effect on 1 January 2024. US Squash summarised the 2025 changes as a new "conditions of play" section, including a new diving rule, a rule on pre-existing blood injuries, and expanded conduct rules; the 2025 contents confirm new sections 12 (Conditions of Play) and 13 (Illness, Injury and Blood Injury).

The rules open by naming two essential principles, because squash is played at high speed in a confined space: safety, meaning no action that endangers the opponent, and fair play.

What the rules say the game is

Singles squash is two players in a court, each with a racket, returning the ball alternately after a serve (Rules 1.1 to 1.3). A good return reaches the front wall above the tin and below the out-line without first bouncing on the floor, and does not touch the tin (Rule 6.2). The court, ball and racket must meet WSF specifications (Rule 1.1). Those specifications are not printed in the rule book: Appendix 5 says they are set by the WSF Courts and Equipment Commission and published separately on the WSF website.

The court (WSF Specifications for Squash Courts)

The figures below come from the WSF court specification read for this site, whose diagrams are dated January 2017. A newer edition on the World Squash site was not opened.

The tin works by sound and bounce: its top 50 mm must deflect the ball, and the rest must make a distinctive noise when struck. Electronic devices may replace that top 50 mm if they sound when the ball enters the zone (sections 5.02.03 and 5.02.04).

Doubles courts

WSF and regional championships, the World Junior Circuit and some national championships may only be played on courts that meet the specification and are built from WSF-accredited products. The PSA has some court requirements of its own.

Scoring (Rule 2)

• Every rally scores: the winner of a rally scores one point and serves next.
• Each game is played to 11 points. At 10-all, play continues until one player leads by two (Rules 2.1 and 2.2).
• A match is normally best of five games, but may be best of three (Rule 2.3).
• The player who wins the spin of a racket serves first (Rule 5.1).

Officials and video review

A match should normally have a Referee, or a Referee and a Marker (Rule 3). The 2025 rules include an appendix on video review (Appendix 3): two reviews per player in a best-of-five match and one in a best-of-three, and no reviews for line or tin calls.

Eyewear (Appendix 4)

The WSF recommends that all squash players wear protective eyewear made to an appropriate national standard, worn properly over the eyes at all times in play, including the warm-up. It makes eyewear mandatory for all WSF-sanctioned doubles and junior events, and keeps a list of WSF-certified eyewear. National bodies set their own rules on top of this; the detail, and the standards involved, are on the eye injuries and eyewear rules and eye protection standards pages.

Doubles, hardball and Squash 57

• Doubles is played under separate WSF International Doubles Rules. A 2022 V2 copy appeared in search results but was not opened for this page.
• North American hardball doubles has its own rules, which Squash Canada links as a US Squash 2025 document. The historian James Zug records that hardball was long a different game from the international "softball" form in North America, and that softball became the leading form in the US from 1 January 1993.
• Squash 57 (formerly racketball) uses the same singles court dimensions, according to the WSF court specification. It is not covered on this site.

Squash racket and ball figures could not be confirmed from World Squash's own specification pages; what is known is on the squash rackets and balls page. Who runs squash is on squash bodies and tours.