Squash Serve Rules and Court Lines: Service Box, Quarter Court, Tin and Out

A squash court has more lines than a tennis court and every one of them decides something. The serve has its lines, the return has its own, and the tin can ruin even the best rally. This article is based on the World Squash (WSF) Rules 2025. The rules of the game do not contain court dimensions; those come from the WSF court specification. For scoring, see squash rules.

Who serves and from where

The first server is decided by a spin of the racket (rule 5.1). At the start of each game and after every change of server, the server chooses the box. While winning rallies, the server alternates boxes (5.2). After a let, the server serves again from the same box (5.3).

Under rule 5.7 a good serve must satisfy all of the following at once:

• you release or throw the ball from the hand or racket and strike it,
• at the moment of striking you have one foot on the floor in the service box with no part of it touching the box line,
• the ball goes directly to the front wall and hits it between the service line and the out line, not the front and side wall at the same time,
• unless the receiver volleys it, it first lands in the opposite quarter court without touching a line,
• it is not out.

If any of these fails, it is a fault and the receiver wins the rally (5.8). There is no second serve in squash. A serve that hits the service line, the short line, the half-court line or any line bounding the top of the court is a fault (note to 5.8).

If you release the ball but make no attempt to strike it, it is not a serve and nothing happens (5.9). And if you serve from the wrong box and nobody notices, the result of the rally stands. If you won it, you serve from the other box next (5.11).

The front wall: service line, out line and tin

The front wall has three horizontal lines and each polices something different.

• The out line at the top bounds the playing area. A ball that hits it or travels above it is out.
• The service line in the middle applies only to the serve. The serve must hit the front wall above it.
• The tin at the bottom is the full width of the front wall from the floor up to and including the lowest horizontal line. A ball into the tin is down.

A good return under rule 6.2: you strike the ball correctly before it has bounced twice on the floor, and it hits the front wall above the tin and below the out line. It may travel via other walls, but it must not touch the floor before the front wall, must not hit the tin after rebounding from it and must not be out.

Down is a return that hits the tin or the floor before the front wall, or the front wall and then the tin. Out is a ball that hits a wall on or above the out line, the top edge of a wall, anything above the out line, passes out of the court or passes through any fitting (Appendix 1).

The out line on the side walls

The out line does not run level around the court. On the front wall it is 4.57 m high, on the back wall 2.13 m, and on the side walls it slopes between those two points. If the court has a transparent back wall 2.13 m high, the back line is omitted.

Court dimensions

The figures come from the WSF court specification, not from the rules of the game. They apply to the inner faces of the walls; the lines are 50 mm wide.

The lines play against you: a serve on the short line, half-court line or service line is a fault, and a ball on the out line is out.

Did you know?

• The top 50 mm of the tin is shaped to deflect the ball, and the rest is built to make the distinctive sound when hit (WSF specification 5.02.03).
• The standard tin is 480 mm. For PSA tournaments 430 mm is preferred, and on wide courts for world events 330 mm is used.
• The court diagonal measures 11,665 mm, measured 1 m above the floor.
• The referee sits in the middle of the back wall, as close to it as possible and just above the out line (rule 3.3). A player cannot have lines or the tin reviewed on video, though (Appendix 3).
• A ball lodged anywhere in the court means a let (11.8). You do not get a let for an unusual bounce, however (11.10). When lets and strokes are given for interference is covered in Let, stroke or no let.