Hello kalaz,

After reading this post I tried the pressure on thumb method with the backhand without much success nor satisfaction. However, yesterday, with 15 minutes on the court to myself, I tried it again had a wonderful time hitting backhands. The ball went straight as an arrow remarkably consistently, I felt as though all the elements of my backhand were in synchrony. What I did differently from the previous attempts was not keeping the thumb and the middle finger touching each other, this I felt made the grip 'balanced' or 'controlled', with the pressure on the thumb the rest of the hand seemed to smoothly come into play also. 

I thank you for this tip & look forward to reading any experience you've had with the pressure of thumb method that you'd like describe. Here's my experience:

1. Keep the thumb and middle finger apart.

2. Put pressure on the thumb only moments before hitting the backhand, otherwise keep the grip 'normal' & relaxed. 

Ciao!

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I believe your coach would know best, after all, they are the ones that are watching you in person.

That being said, some things that helped me personally were shoulder rotation, cocked wrist, weight transfer, and pronation/supination of the forearm.

Although Sloejp mentions rotating the shoulders, and specifically the left shoulder for a right hander, I'm referring more to the starting position of your swing, with the right shoulder facing the wall and your torso rotated toward the back wall. This ensures that when your racket contacts the ball by your front foot (or /- depending on how you hit), your racket, with forearm supination, will have come around sufficiently to hit in the right direction.

Keeping a cocked wrist, and using forearm supination through the swing will bring your racket around with sufficient speed, and without the need to use any sort of wrist action, which can break down under pressure. Check Ray's videos on the site about forearm pronation/supination.

Finally, engaging my hips to start my body rotation keeps my lower body connected through my core, with proper weight transfer from my back foot to my front foot.

I find those three things, proper shoulder rotation, forearm pronation/supination, and hips/lower body/weight transfer all account for power and precision in my shot. I would suggest you find squashgod's Youtube videos, specifically the slow motion backhand and slow motion forehand ones, and watch for those three things.

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In the Squashgame Gold Library, see at the top of the menu items there are lots of chapters. The "Troubleshooting" tab will take you to use hints to improve your game and your shots.

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 keeping pressure on the thumb works for me.

i would also recommend focusing more on the follow through and rotating the shoulders. if you're right handed, make sure the left shoulder continues to rotate forward as part of your follow through.

also, does your coach take videos of you playing to watch later? watching videos of yourself can be a big help in improving timing, which would address the second point you made. it's like trying to improve your golf swing.

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