WISPA Moves to Pro-Scoring

In the first scoring system change in the history of women's professional squash, the Women's International Squash Players' Association has decided today (Monday) that all matches played on the WISPA World Tour from 21st July will move to what it terms Pro-Scoring.

The decision, taken at today's WISPA Board meeting held on finals day of the Dunlop British Open in Liverpool, will introduce scoring of ‘point a rally' to 11 points (PAR11) - the same as that used on the PSA Men's Tour.  The initiative will be launched at the CIMB Malaysian Open in Kuala Lumpur.

The 11-point system was an innovation introduced by the PSA several seasons ago in an effort to tip the balance towards offense at the highest level of play. It has been a largely successful innovation on the men's side.

"After a 16 month period of testing we have assured ourselves that Pro-Scoring will work well for our Tour - it will be simple to understand for spectators and viewers, and align the professional game, the men having already settled into PAR 11," affirmed WISPA Chief Executive Andrew Shelley. WISPA President Natalie Grainger added:  "Pro-Scoring has been very enthusiastically received at our trial events so I am excited that we have made the change.  It will take our players a short while to adapt to the different structure of games but I have no doubt whatsoever that this is another forward step for women's international squash."

The current scoring system used in the women's game - and by millions of squash players worldwide - is based on ‘hand-in-hand-out', i.e, only the server scores points.  The server, on winning a rally, scores a point; the receiver, on winning a rally, becomes the server. 

Pro-Scoring, however, is played best of five games to 11 points, with points being scored irrespective of which player serves.  Where the score reaches ten all, the game will be won by two clear points (which will be expressed as 11-10, irrespective of the actual score, in the way that tennis tie breaks are written as 7-6).