ABSTRACT
Systematic observation techniques have been used to analyse championship squash match-play for signature features of sport behaviour, in particular invariant shot responses to various preceding behavioural events (e.g., McGarry and Franks, 1996). The results showed that invariant behavioural responses were dependent in part on the level of analytic detail and, also, on the individual player. Thus both invariant and variant shot responses have been found in squash match-play from statistical analysis. This finding, coupled with the anecdotal likening of a badminton rally to a dance in which both partners maintain synchrony until a false step leads to subsequent disruption (Downey, 1993), led to the consideration of squash competition as an open system that intermittently transits between bouts of invariant (stable) and variant (unstable) behaviour. A perceptual analysis subsequently confirmed that squash competition can be independently perceived by different observers to transit between these two system states (McGarry et al., 1996).
