Not long ago, an anonymous YouTuber known only as Quash Bad Squash reposted one of the strangest moments in the history of the sport.
It’s match ball in the finals of last year’s British Open tournament, with a check for $26,600 on the line. The four-time world champion Ali Farag, an Egyptian with the physique of a pipe cleaner and the speed of Mercury, is about to lunge forward and hit a backhand. But as he tries to get past his opponent, a rising superstar and fellow countryman named Mostafa Asal, Mr. Farag does something baffling.
He stops playing.
Instead, he wheels around to look at Mr. Asal, as if he’s momentarily stunned.
“Oh, my goodness gracious me!” shouts one of the commentators broadcasting live on the website SquashTV.
“What has he done?” shouts another.
The referee isn’t sure. So a second referee, whose job is to handle tough calls, looks at instant replay video footage to determine if Mr. Asal blocked his opponent — a no-no that would cost him the point. The second referee watches the sequence a few times and sees nothing wrong.
Point and match to Mr. Asal. He buries his face in his hands, overwhelmed with joy.
For everyone else, a mystery remained: Why did Mr. Farag stop playing?
In a text message last week, Mr. Farag declined to say. But the answer seemed obvious in that Quash Bad Squash video, posted in early June and titled “Remember this left hand?” Whoever is behind the channel took the footage of the point, zoomed in and slowed it way, way down. At that speed, it’s pretty clear.
Mr. Asal’s open left hand seems to make contact with Mr. Farag’s groin. And it does not look like an accident.
“What do you think?” asks the female voice-to-text narrator that Quash Bad Squash uses for every video, to maintain anonymity. “Is this a testicle tickle?”
It is just one of about a dozen videos posted by Quash Bad Squash since the YouTube account went live in April. Most of them make the same argument, over and over: that 24-year-old Mostafa Asal, currently the No. 1 ranked player and reigning world champion, is a cheater.
Maybe that’s too harsh. Foul play might be more apt. Either way, the videos have landed with a concussive thud in the world of squash, which wrapped up its season this week in Toronto. During the World Championships in May, the videos were debated by commentators on Squash TV, suggesting that Quash Bad Squash has turned Mr. Asal’s on-court behavior, long a source of irritation among players and fans, into the game’s hottest topic.
“I’d like to know who that person is,” said Johnny Williams, a former world No. 15 pro, during SquashTV’s on-air analysis. “And one day, we might get to the bottom of it.”
Not likely, says Quash. In a series of emails, the anonymous YouTuber said little about his identity, revealing only that he is, in fact, a man and that he has no collaborators. His grasp of the rule book and eye for subtleties have caused a few people to speculate that he might be a coach, perhaps even a high-level player. He won’t say.
“I prefer to let the content of my videos be the sole focus,” Quash wrote. One reason is to minimize the static in his life. He has been threatened with both death and litigation via the email link on his YouTube account, he said. And the puzzle of his identity adds a bit of intrigue and perhaps some staying power.
“You can’t cancel a ghost,” he wrote.
The videos underscore that Mr. Asal is now the sport’s greatest attraction and biggest migraine. He was disqualified from the U.S. Open in 2022, after he hit his opponent in the head with the ball, resulting in a burst eardrum. He was barred from the tour twice in 2023, first for six weeks, then for 12, for dangerous play, unsportsmanlike conduct and other infractions. His matches are often stop-start affairs, with a maddening number of referee decisions.
He’s also a once-in-a-decade talent, with an imposing physique — he plays with his nickname, “The Raging Bull,” printed on his shirt — a pitiless combination of touch, speed and power. He’s wildly charismatic, too. For most players of this British-born sport, post-victory rituals involve a tasteful fist pump followed by a handshake. Mr. Asal screams, runs up the walls, kneels on the floor, rips off his sweaty shirt and tosses it into the crowd. He has 2.1 million followers on Instagram. A start-up company called Shahtoosh is trying to build a brand around him, selling rackets and clothing.
Off the court, even detractors say he’s friendly and charming.
On the court, even supporters acknowledge he’s got issues.
For the past 18 months, he has been coached by James Willstrop, a former world No. 1 player, who has been trying to impart both Zen-like calm and some rule-abiding discipline. He acknowledges that his protégé has, in fact, left a meaty leg in the way of more than a few opponents, among other sins.
“It’s not like all of a sudden these videos have exposed him,” Mr. Willstrop said. “He’s been getting these things wrong, and he’ll play one match, and he gets it a bit better, and then he goes back a couple of steps.”
In a text, Mr. Asal said he had not watched the Quash videos and would not comment on the claims of rule-breaking. Great athletes in every sport get plenty of hate, he wrote, including his hero, the soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo. “But we ignore it,” he wrote, “and continue towards building the legacy and forget about any distraction.”
Squash has been gaining momentum in recent years. The Professional Squash Association has signed some lucrative sponsorship deals, including one with Mark Walter, a Chicago billionaire and an owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chelsea F.C. Terms were not disclosed, but it’s reportedly one reason that total prize money this year for men’s and women’s tournaments exceeded $10.5 million, a record sum. The sport will make its debut at the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
It will have to fix its Asal problem before that.
A bit of background for the unfamiliar: Squash is played in a glass court that is 21 feet wide with a ball that will exceed 160 miles an hour when hit hard enough. Players swing in close quarters, and a match is ideally a free-flowing minuet. Hit the ball, get out of the way, repeat, until the ball bounces twice, or hits the tin — the game’s equivalent of a tennis net — or sails out of bounds.
The Quash videos compile some of Mr. Asal’s most egregious behavior. In one, he bonks an opponent on the head with the butt of his racket. He trips more than a few. One he actually kicked. In every case, he pleads innocent, apparently shocked to see his opponent sprawled on the floor.
Unsurprisingly, all of this has made him unpopular with other players. A Frenchman named Victor Crouin noted in a 2023 interview that when Mr. Asal first reached the No. 1 spot in the rankings that year, not a single player congratulated him on social media. (Mr. Asal said in an interview with Squash Mad at the time that Mr. Crouin was “jealous.”)
Referees are supposed to spot misconduct and impose penalties, like losing the point, or even a game if infractions continue. A lot of the egregious behavior, though, is nearly invisible, even in slow motion. A player intent on mischief can get away with a lot.
“My opinion is that while refereeing can improve,” Quash wrote, “ultimately squash is a sport that demands both players play with the intent to play fairly.”
Then there are fans and players who say the refs aren’t looking hard enough on purpose.
Squash needs Mr. Asal as much as, maybe more than, Mr. Asal needs squash, goes the theory. So he’s getting a pass.
Untrue, says Lee Drew, the head of World Squash Officiating, a job that puts him in charge of referees with the Professional Squash Association. He said his organization had issued three new directives this year designed to keep play fair and flowing and was hiring more full-time refs.
The need for reform was painfully evident in a British Open match in early June. Mr. Asal was up against a sturdy, relentless Welshman, Joel Makin, who had announced before the match that he would be as physical as his opponent. Which he was. In the fourth game, with the score tied at 6-6, he collided with Mr. Asal, then threw him to the floor, with a move that looked lifted from Greco-Roman wrestling. Both men wound up in a heap.
Mr. Asal got up and won that game and the match. Quash Bad Squash quickly posted a video. Title: “Asal vs Makin Exposed Major Flaws in the Rules.”
David Segal is a business reporter for The Times, based in New York.
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