How Long Is a Squash Match?

How long pro squash matches last, what makes them longer, the players in the longest ones, and what best of three changes.

Results to 30 October 2026.

Leo Au and Shawn Delierre had already played four games when the fifth reached 14-14. Au won the next two points, 16-14, and their semi-final at the 2015 Gas City Pro-Am ended after 170 minutes: almost three hours, the longest match on record.

Most matches are nothing like that. Put 67,151 timed matches together and the typical men’s match lasts 42 minutes, the typical women’s match 31. The score explains most of the difference between one match and the next. The scoring system, the level of the event, the round, the gap in the rankings and the players themselves explain the rest.

Key findings

• The scoring changes made matches shorter, the men’s move to scoring to 11 most of all.
• The closer the ranking and the later the round, the longer the match.
• The best players win quickly and lose slowly.
• Best of three saves about a quarter of the time for men and a third for women.

A Note on the Data

The matches are the main draws of professional events, from the World Championship down to the Challenger Tour, completed and played over the best of five games (best of three has its own section at the end). Walkovers, retirements and qualifying are left out.

Match times are recorded for most matches from 2005, so the averages start there (43,186 men’s and 23,965 women’s matches). The longest matches use every year. A few recorded times are clearly typos (a 3-0 “in 2 minutes”), so a match needs at least four minutes a game to count.

Match Length at a Glance

• The typical match: 42 minutes for men and 31 for women (half are shorter, half longer). The average is a little higher, 46 and 34, pulled up by the long ones.
• The most common length: 35 minutes (men) and 25 (women).
• The last three years: 41 and 30 minutes.
• By score: a 3-0 takes 33 minutes for men and 25 for women, a 3-1 50 and 39, a 3-2 67 and 52.
• The longest match: Leo Au v Shawn Delierre, 170 minutes (Holtrand Gas City Pro-Am, 2015).
• The longest final: Shawn Delierre v Adrian Waller, 157 minutes (Squash Revolution National Capital Open, 2013).
• The longest women’s match: Nouran Gohar v Hania El Hammamy, 130 minutes (the 2023 CIB PSA World Tour Finals final).

The Longest Matches

The longest match on record is Leo Au v Shawn Delierre: 170 minutes in the semi-final of the Holtrand Gas City Pro-Am in 2015, almost three hours. Next is Segundo Portabales v Andrés Herrera, 163 minutes in 2026, then the longest final, Shawn Delierre v Adrian Waller (157 minutes, 2013). Shawn Delierre is in four of the ten longest men’s matches.

Among the women, Nouran Gohar v Hania El Hammamy took 130 minutes in the 2023 CIB PSA World Tour Finals final, ahead of Samantha Teran v Latasha Khan (120 minutes, 2008) and Rhonda Thorne v Vicki Hoffman (118 minutes, Alan Cherry World Open final, 1981).

The longest men’s final at the very top level (a World Championship or a Platinum event) is still Geoff Hunt v Mohibullah Khan, 130 minutes in the 1976 Lucas Industries British Open. Hover over a bar for the event and the game scores.

Take-away: The records are extreme outliers, several times as long as a typical match.

How Long a Match Lasts

Most matches are much shorter than the records. Half of men’s matches are over in 42 minutes and half of women’s in 31, and the women’s curve is both narrower and further left: women’s matches are shorter and closer together in length.

Take-away: Most matches are far shorter than the records, and women’s matches are shorter and more alike in length than men’s.

How Long a Match Takes, by Score

Most matches are over in three games: 52% of men’s matches and 58% of women’s. A 3-1 is 30% and 27%, and only 18% and 16% go to a fifth game.

Each extra game adds a quarter of an hour or so. A 3-0 is over within a narrow band of times; a 3-2 can take anything from under an hour to two.

Take-away: The score sets the length: each extra game adds about a quarter of an hour, and a five-setter can take anything up to two hours.

Match Length Year by Year

Two changes in the scoring show clearly in the times. Men played games to 15 points until August 2004, then point-a-rally to 11 (PAR-11): the typical men’s match fell from 59 minutes in 2001 and 54 in 2003 to 44 by 2005, and has hardly moved since (41 minutes in 2026). Women played games to 9, scoring only on their own serve, until July 2008: their matches went from 36 minutes in 2007 to 33 in 2009.

The women’s tin came down to the men’s height (17 inches) from September 2015, to make the game more attacking. It shows no clear change in match length (34 minutes in 2014, 33 in 2016); women’s matches got shorter again around 2018 (30 minutes), the season the tour split into the World Tour and the Challenger Tour and more small events came onto the calendar.

The thin lines split each year by score: all three move together, so the drops come from shorter games, not from more 3-0s. Before 2005 fewer matches have a time, so the early years are shaded. 2020 and 2021, the Covid seasons, had fewer events, so their numbers are less steady.

Take-away: The scoring changes shortened matches, the men’s move to scoring to 11 most of all; the lower women’s tin made no clear difference.

World Tour and Challenger Tour

Since 2018, the top events have made up the World Tour and the smaller ones the Challenger Tour. World Tour matches are longer at every score: 48 minutes for men against 39 on the Challenger Tour, and 35 against 27 for women. They are also closer: 48% of men’s World Tour matches end 3-0, against 54% on the Challenger Tour (53% and 60% for women). Stronger, more even fields make for longer matches.

Take-away: Stronger, more even fields make longer matches: World Tour matches take longer than Challenger Tour ones at every score.

The Later the Round, the Longer the Match

On the World Tour, a men’s match in the last 32 takes 46 minutes and a final 61; for women 33 and 47.

The reason is the score. Early rounds pit the seeds against players they usually beat, and 51% of men’s last-32 matches finish 3-0. In the final it is 37%, and the share that goes to five games rises from 18% to 26% (women: 16% to 23%).

Take-away: The later the round, the closer the players and the longer the match.

Close Rankings, Long Matches

The closer two players are in the world ranking, the longer they play. Between two men ranked fewer than five places apart the median match lasts 59 minutes and 27% go to five games; fifty or more places apart it is 39 minutes and 11%. For women: 44 and 28 minutes.

Most matches are between players fewer than 30 places apart, and they last 30 to 60 minutes for men, 20 to 45 for women. The darker the square, the more matches.

Upsets take longer too. Between players ten or more places apart, a men’s match lasts 45 minutes when the favourite wins and 57 when the lower-ranked player does; for women 32 and 42. An upset is rarely quick.

Take-away: The closer the ranking, the longer the match, and an upset is rarely quick.

The Players in the Longest Matches

Over the last 3 years (players with 25 or more matches), Joel Makin has played the longest matches among the men, 61 minutes on average, ahead of Ivan Perez and Pedro Mometto. Among the women it is Amina Orfi (50 minutes), Nele Gilis and Hania El Hammamy.

The best players win quickly and lose slowly. Of today’s top 20 men, seventeen take longer over their losses than their wins, and so do twenty of the top 20 women. The widest gaps: Diego Elias (45 minutes in a win, 65 in a loss) and Hania El Hammamy (44 and 74). Beating a top player usually takes a long fight.

Today’s top 15, with their record and average match length over the same three years:

Over a whole career since 2005 (150 or more matches), the longest matches belong to Mathieu Castagnet (62 minutes on average), Joel Makin (61) and Adrian Grant (60), and to Amina Orfi (49), Hania El Hammamy (48) and Tesni Murphy (46).

Take-away: The best players win quickly and lose slowly: beating a top player usually takes a long fight.

Best of Three

Since 2018 a few Gold, Silver and Bronze events have played their early rounds over the best of three games, keeping best of five for the later rounds, and the World Tour Finals have used it too. That makes 622 best-of-three matches so far, against tens of thousands over five games.

To compare like with like, the chart takes the same kind of events (Gold, Silver and Bronze, last 32 to quarter-finals) from 2018. A best-of-three match takes 34 minutes for men against 46 over five games, 26% less; for women 21 against 33, 36% less.

Dropping two of five games would save more than that, but the games themselves change. Men’s best-of-three games last 15.0 minutes against 12.8 over five games (women’s 10.0 and 9.7, about the same), and the matches go the distance more often: 37% of men’s best-of-three matches go to a deciding third game, against 19% reaching a fifth over best of five (women: 27% and 18%). With less room to come back, every game counts more.

Best of three is quicker, but not by as much as it looks, and every game in it carries more weight. Whether that is worth losing the five-game epics is a question for the fans as much as for the tour.

Take-away: Best of three saves about a quarter of the time for men and a third for women, and makes every game count for more.

About the Data

• Results to 30 October 2026.
• Professional main draws, completed matches with a recorded time of at least four minutes a game.
• Best of five unless the section says best of three; averages from 2005, the longest matches from every year.
• A player’s ranking is the one on the last list a week before the event ended.
• The scoring system of each match comes from its game scores (games to 15, to 11, or to 9).

Over to You

Should more events play best of three, or does squash need its long matches? Tell us in the comments below.

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