Hardball doubles, the original four-handed squash game, is nearing its centennial. In 1907 Fred Thompkins, an English-born professional at the Racquet Club of Philadelphia, constructed a court forty-five feet long and twenty-five feet wide on the fourth floor of the RCOP�s new clubhouse.
In the twenties the game spread beyond the Racquet Club, with Germantown Cricket building a court in 1923, Merion Cricket in 1925, Rockaway and the University Club of New York in 1928 and the Heights Casino in 1930. In that year the USSRA changed the scoring system to what we know today (first to fifteen, best three out of five games), and three years later they lowered the tin from nineteen to seventeen inches.
Tournament play, another sign of growth, began in January 1929 with the Lockett Cup (the doubles tournament not the inter-city match). In February 1933 the USSRA hosted the first nationals, for both men and women, in Greenwich, Conn. Doubles became so popular that three courts were laid out according to US Squash standards in Great Britain, two in London and one in Edinburgh. (The Edinburgh court is still open: http://www.edinburgh-sports-club.co.uk).
In the nineteen-sixties and seventies, doubles spread around the nation. Amateur tournaments sprung up, making an exciting circuit that reached its height in the weeks after the U.S. nationals in mid-February. Women were especially keen players and in 1969 the USSRA coopted the famed Germantown Cricket Club mixed to make a national mixed doubles tournament.
Pro doubles, founded in 1938 at the Heights Casino with what is now called the Johnson Doubles, struggled to gain a foothold outside New York until the early nineteen-eighties. Riding on the coattails of the emering hardball singles tour, pro doubles had events across the continent and not only survived but thrived in the period after the singles tour disappeared. In 2000 the hardball players left the PSA umbrella and formed their own organization, the International Squash Doubles Association.
Today, doubles is in its best shape ever. The ISDA has a twenty-event, $600,000 prize money tour. Amateur doubles is thriving, with an exciting tournament mix of traditional invitational draws, city and state draws, member-guests, parent-childs, pro-ams and annual inter-club, inter-city and international matches. The World Doubles, a tournament originally played in early eighties, was recreated in 1994. It is played every two years, with Toronto and Philadelphia alternating as the host city. The extra-large court has always offered an opportunity for juniors to develop skills and learn about teamwork while having fun. Tournament play began at a Delaware Junior Doubles at the Wilmington Country Club in 1986. In 1991 the tournament became the national junior doubles, which has been the cornerstone of junior play ever since. In 2005 the USSRA founded the world's first national father & son squash doubles tournament.
Softball doubles, invented in England in 1986, came to the U.S. in the late 1990s and has struggled to gain a foothold in the country where hardball doubles has provided such enjoyment for almost a century.
For more on the history of doubles, see James Zug, Squash: A History of the Game (Scribner, 2003)
