Squash's Let and Stroke: Refereeing a Sport Where Blocking Is Unavoidable
TL;DR
Squash puts two players in a court where they must occupy the same place at the same time, so interference is inevitable rather than exceptional. Rule 8 resolves it three ways. A let replays the rally. A stroke awards the point to the player who was obstructed. A no let means no relief at all — awarded when the interference was minimal, when the player could not have made the return anyway, or when they played on. The standard is that after playing the ball a player must make every effort to get out of the way.
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The problem is structural, not behavioural
Most sports treat obstruction as misconduct — something a player chose to do.
The sport reaches the Olympics for the first time in 2028 — see squash at LA28.
The other racket sport where the walls are in play handles this very differently — see padel’s rules.
Squash cannot. Two players share a court roughly the size of a small room, and after striking the ball a player is standing exactly where their opponent now needs to be. The ball comes back to the same place they just were.
Interference is therefore normal, dozens of times a rally, and no amount of good behaviour eliminates it. The rules exist not to punish an aberration but to allocate an unavoidable cost.
Three answers, and they are not degrees of the same thing
| Decision | Outcome |
|---|---|
| Let | rally replayed — nobody at fault |
| Stroke | point awarded to the obstructed player |
| No let | no relief — the player asking loses the rally |
These are often described as a scale from lenient to severe. They are better understood as answers to different questions.
A let says the interference was real and neither player is to blame. A stroke says the interfering player failed in an obligation. A no let says there was nothing to remedy — either the interference did not matter, or the player asking would not have won the rally anyway.
“Every effort” is the whole standard
The rules impose a positive duty: after playing the ball, a player must make every effort to get out of the opponent’s way.
Not reasonable effort. Not avoid deliberately blocking. Every effort.
That is a demanding standard, and it is deliberately demanding, because the alternative would be unworkable. If the test were intent, every referee decision would require judging what a player meant to do while moving at speed in a confined space. Asking instead whether they made every effort to clear is a question about observable movement.
It is the same drafting choice as sailing assigning the duty to keep clear rather than the right to hold course: frame the rule so that applying it is a question of fact rather than of mind-reading.
The exclusions are where matches are decided
The most-omitted part of Rule 8 is the list of situations in which a player is not entitled to a let, even though interference genuinely occurred.
They could not have returned the ball. If the shot was unreachable anyway, the interference cost them nothing.
They accepted the interference and played on. Having chosen to continue, they cannot go back and ask for relief once the rally goes badly.
The interference was minimal — access to and the strike at the ball were not affected.
That last one carries the weight. Without it, a player could stop every rally, because in squash there is always some contact or crowding. The minimal-interference exclusion is what stops the let call from consuming the sport.
Why this is one of the hardest jobs in officiating
Fencing keeps a human in the middle for the same reason — the machine reports contact, but a referee must reconstruct whose action had priority. See fencing’s right of way.
A squash referee is asked, several times a minute, to determine whether a player could have played a shot they did not play.
That is a counterfactual. The evidence is a moment that lasted a fraction of a second, in which two bodies and a racket occupied overlapping space, and the honest answer is often genuinely unclear.
Other sports have moved such calls to technology. Football automated offside position because it is geometric. Taekwondo gave contact to sensors because force is measurable.
Squash’s central question — would this player have reached the ball? — is neither geometric nor measurable. It remains human, which is why let and stroke decisions still generate more argument than anything else in the sport.
More rulebook coverage is in rules and techniques.
Frequently asked questions
What is a let in squash?
A replayed rally. It is awarded when interference prevented a player from making their shot but nobody is judged at fault. No point is won or lost.
What is a stroke in squash?
The point is awarded outright to the player who was interfered with, rather than the rally being replayed.
What is a no let?
No relief. The player asking for a let loses the rally — for example because the interference was minimal, or they could not have returned the ball anyway.
What does 'every effort' mean?
After playing the ball, a player must make every effort to get out of the opponent's way and give them access to the ball. Failing to do so is what turns a let into a stroke.
Why can't you get a let for minor contact?
Because the rules exclude interference so minimal that access to and the strike at the ball were not affected. Otherwise every rally could be stopped.
What if a player plays on after interference?
They are treated as having accepted it, and cannot then claim a let.