Picture this: You and your opponent turn up for a match. You’re getting warmed up and ready. Your opponent looks to you and asks the age old question – ‘you got a decent ball mate?’. You scramble to your bag only to realise that your squash balls are smoother and shinier than Bruce Willis’s forehead. Neither of you have cash for a new ball. We’ve all likely been in this situation before – the Echo 2XP is here to help.
A squash ball at the elite level is often used for just three games. Nope, not matches. Games. At the amateur level, squash balls are used for a lot longer, often far too long.
When a squash ball’s overused, a couple of things can happen:
- They become spongy – playing slower over time and becoming less responsive on impact
- They lose their grippy rubber texture and become slippery
Slippy balls can be a real problem for squash players. If you laughed at that, take your head out of the gutter.
Moving on.
Using a slippery squash ball means your shots are likely slide across the floor or wall. This makes predicting the balls movement far more difficult and erratic. ‘Cutting’ across the ball with your racket also becomes difficult as there’s nothing for your strings to grip on impact.
While there’s no way to fix a ‘spongy’ feeling squash ball, thanks to a new invention from American company Echo, you can now restore the grippy rubber texture back to almost-new.
Meet the Echo 2XP
Echo have developed a beautifully simple concept, but its one that I’ve found works tremendously well.
The 2XP gets its name from the fact that it should give you twice the playing time out of your squash balls. This means that over the course of a year, you could halve your spend on squash balls. I tend to buy one or two balls a week, probably spending over £150 a year in total. This gives me potential savings of £75 a year. Not bad!
How does it work?
You place the squash ball inside the 2XP and buff it against the coarse material inside.
The sharp grain helps to really rough up the outer material of the ball. Put enough elbow grease into it and you can get a near-new feel on a fairly old squash ball. Echo advised me to use water on squash balls while doing it – I followed their advice and this seemed to work pretty well.
Here’s the result – the ball on the left without the logo is really old and would normally be binned. There was absolutely no grip left on the ball, which you can see by looking at how the light shines off it in the first picture. Look towards the second picture though and you can see just how much shine has been removed from the ball.
Before After
This is awesome. The amount of squash balls sat in the bottom of my bag that never get used is absolutely criminal. It’s not just bad for my wallet, it’s pretty bad for the environment too.
By restoring older squash balls, it’s given me license to easily get a few more hours’ use out of each of them.
How does it compare to using a new squash ball?
I’m pleased to let you know that the grippy, sticky rubber feel made an immediate difference to the squash ball and it was immediately far more playable.
The only issue you’ll find is that you can’t fix a ‘dead’ ball. Some balls so last longer than others though, so you’ll definitely have some squash balls that still feel lively after re-buffing them.
I would happily use a less lively ball in training sessions. I hate using new squash balls for training with as they get ruined really quickly, so this for me is the perfect alternative.
Summary
I absolutely love this product. It’s something that’ll save me a fair bit of money in the future, and it’s way better than seeing a load of squash balls go to waste. It also means less rubber going to landfill, which certainly helps the environment.
If I was to nit-pick, I’d say that the casing of the 2XP feels a little plasticky. The older variants of the Echo 2XP were made of metal and arguably looked a little nicer. However, Echo have been able to reduce the price from £40 to around £23 ($30). For me, that’s a wonderful trade off. I would take the newer, lower priced version every day of the week . It does the exact job it’s intended to do, plus the all black casing looks pretty sleek.
You could in theory use something like sand-paper as an alternative. I tried this and it kind of worked. However, I found the shape of the 2XP to make the process of refurbishing squash balls way quicker and easier, with a more even and consistent finish. It’s also something I’d happily put in my squash bag – I’d look a little strange carrying sandpaper around with me!
If you’re like me and have plenty of old squash balls kicking around in your bag, I’d have no reservations in recommending the Echo 2XP. It’ll save you money and help the planet. A brilliant and unique product!
P.s – Here’s a random top tip for you. New strings tend to take the grip off squash balls faster. If you can break in your strings using an older squash ball, you’ll keep your newer balls lasting longer.
Purchase links
Echosquash.com (new version / USA)
QSS-Squash.com (old version / Europe – I’m told they should have the new versions in stock soon!)
Psst, If you’re looking to buy some new squash balls, if you purchase them from Amazon using my Amazon Affiliate link, the price will be exactly the same as normal, and I’ll receive a small percentage of the sale as thanks. It’s not much, but it helps me to continue to run this website.
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