Diego Elias v Jonathon Power – A Cross Courts Analytics Comparison

Diego Elias fulfilled a lifelong dream this year by becoming a World Champion for the first time – the first South American to do so – with a stunning run through the draw. This has been seen as a long time coming for many, with a storied junior career including two World Junior Championships and two British Junior Opens led by guidance from his father, himself a Peruvian national champion. 

Another person who has had a significant influence on Elias’ game is former World Champion and World No.1, Jonathon Power. Power has worked with Elias since Elias was 14 and has no doubt influenced his approach to the game. This begs the question: how alike are their games? As squash data outfit Cross Court Analytics, we will be digging into the data from 5 matches by both players (listed at the end); we will spot some similarities, but also some notable differences, and see how Diego Elias has weaved the advice of a great champion into the modern approach to squash to turn himself into a world champion, with the potential for plenty more to come.

Jonathon Power is perhaps best known for his deception. It was a common sight to see him force a loose ball into the front, jump onto it in a flash, and then show the option to hit just about every shot in the book, leaving the opponent guessing and invariably going the wrong way. Looking at where JP hit his winners from, we see the ‘L-shape’ pattern often seen in matches between two right handed players, their top 3 areas for winners being from both sides of the mid-court, and the front left. The same is true for Elias, however their most prolific areas are different – for Power this is the front left with 23.6% of his winners, Elias the mid-left with 25.2%. Notably Elias’s least prolific area, the front-right (10.8%), is fourth for Power, up at 17.8%. This may be affected by the inclusion of two epic matches against the left-handed Peter Nicol in the dataset, inducing more play down the right wall to target Nicol’s backhand. All of Elias’s matches analysed are against right handers, with the usual pattern of play down the left (backhand) wall.

The numbers in the chart above show the percentage of their winners that each player hit from each region: Power hit 23.6% of his winners from the front left, while Elias hit 25.2% of his winners from mid-left.[U2]

The frequency of winners in the front of the court shows the expected effectiveness of Power’s hold and options when given time at the front. 41% of all Power’s winners are from the front, but just 26% of Elias’. Elias instead hits more winners from the back by 28% to 19% for Power,  indicative of the willingness of modern players to attack from a wider range of opportunities.[U3] 

This front court is not a particular weakness for Power either: for those 41% of his winners he only makes 21% of his unforced errors there – a good return on investment. Instead, for only 9.5% of his winners from the back left he makes 24.7% of his unforced errors there. This is perhaps unsurprising giving the number of balls hit into that region over a match and how hard it is to hit winners from there, but it does mark one stark contrast to Elias who is rock-solid in the back left – for 14.4% of his winners he only makes 12.8% of his unforced errors here – instead erring most in the deep right (25.5%).  

While it is easy to focus on the end result (winners), for top players like Elias and Power this is so often set up by superb length play. Focusing back in on that back left, perhaps the most crucial area of the court for any right-hander, both players hit the ball to similar places despite the difference in error count. From the back left they returned roughly 47% of balls back to the back left, and 60% back to deep overall. Power actually hits to deep right less frequently than Elias, surprising as you might expect him to target that area against Nicol. But the numbers are similar when looking at balls to mid or deep right, showing Nicol’s ability to cut off Power’s crosscourts. This may be a good indicator again of how the game has become more open and attacking over time, rather than concentrating on the left side channel. 

One slightly more subtle difference is on the backhand long straight drop – represented in our charts as the percentage of shots hit from back left to front left. Elias hits this option just 2.7% of the time, Power 6.7%. Both are small amounts overall but Power here is hitting into this area more than twice as often, frequently using a shot rarely seen now – the straight volley drop off the serve.[U4] 

Once again we can see a change between Power’s era and the modern game. Power and his opponents both return 42% of shots from deep right to deep right, twice as often as they hit crosscourt to deep left (21%), showing the old school values of keeping the ball straight in the channel. Elias’s opponents take a far more open approach: 32.5% back to deep right from deep right and 31.5% to deep left, nearly equal. Elias sits in the middle here, hitting 37% back to deep right, showing how he has been influenced by both sides: 5% less than Power but 5% more than his opponents.

As expected from two quality players, this immaculate length hitting laid the foundations of their games, with over 50% of pre-winners (the shot before a winner) coming from deep. However, Power again leads with play at the front.Elias hits 11% of his pre-winners from short, Power a staggering 21% of pre-winners in addition to all his outright winners, showing how hard it was to not just get the ball back, but also to hit a strong return when Power is let loose at the front.

We normally think of the game speeding up as time has gone on, so it is perhaps surprising to see that Elias neither volleys the ball more, nor takes it before the back wall more than Power. [U5] JP volleys 1 in 5 shots, and only allows a further 1 in 5 to come off the back wall. Elias also volleys 1 in 5 shots, but allows an extra 3 shots per 100 to hit the back wall, which can add up over a long match. It definitely adds up for his opponents who are taking the ball of the back wall an extra 5% of the time above Elias, showing that one of his real strengths is making them take those few extra steps so often. This wasn’t an advantage that Power had, in fact his opponents took the ball off the back wall less frequently than he did, likely due to JP’s penchant for attacking into the front.

The charts above show the percentage of all shots hit that were of a certain type.

Again looking at pace of play, Elias lifts nearly one in ten of his shots. It is a common sight to see him soak up any pressure with a few lobs and meander back to the T before re-initiating his attacks. Power is much lower at 1 in 16 shots lifted, unsurprising with his preference for counter attacking, especially in the front corners. When put into the front right Power is most likely to counter drop, whereas Elias puts more balls to deep left, often with a crosscourt lift. Power also counters most often in the front left, 35% of the time, but that is nothing compared to 43.6% of the time for Elias, showing a real preference for attacking into this corner rather than onto his opponent’s forehands.[U6] 

Volley rates may not have changed, but one thing that certainly has is the number of decisions per match. Of the Elias matches considered, the maximum number of decisions was 42 over 5 games with Mostafa Asal, an average of 8.4 per game (check out our linked deep dive for a detailed breakdown of refereeing decisions per player in the modern era). Across all 5 Power games the average number of decisions per game was 15.1, with 10.3 of them being Yes Lets. The ‘standout’ here is the Hong Kong final vs Peter Nicol where in 4 games (albeit played to 15), there were 80 decisions, 62 of which were Yes Lets. Even Power’s match with fewest decisions, a 3-0 rout of Thierry Lincou, had 32 decisions in those 3 games.

The chart above shows the number of decisions, broken down by type and game, in the Power vs Nicol match at Hong Kong 2002.

The acceptance of Yes Lets with minimal interference in the early 2000s goes a long way to explaining why matches involving Elias have a higher mean rally length (17 shots compared to 13 for Power), with fewer rallies cut short by Yes Lets there are fewer rallies overall and they last longer. All of these stoppages incur a time delay and this shows in the match durations – in this sample Elias has four 3-1 results and all fall in the 60-69 minute range, Power’s 3-1 results are 80 and 100 minutes respectively, although this difference is also impacted by the matches being played to 15 rather than 11. 

So what conclusions can we draw from these comparisons? For similarities, neither player is outstanding across the middle, volleying far less often than, say, Ali Farag, and let a similar number of balls through to the back wall. What they do from here is slightly different as Elias hits more winners and more crosscourts out of the back, showing a contemporary approach to the game as he aims to initiate attacks and create pressure that way. Power aims far more to force weak shots into the front and then pounce onto the ball with many options, aided by the shorter rallies and more stoppages helping him recover to keep up the explosive style, [U7] even over longer matches. Both take different options when under pressure too, as Power aims to counter, Elias backs himself to absorb the pressure until settled and then re-starting attacks himself. The divergence is clear to see, partly due to changes in the game overall, but watching them there is no doubt of the link between the two.

This was the third piece in our Past vs Present match-ups. If you liked this numerical comparison of eras, be sure to check out the numbers behind two great movers – Farag vs Jansher – and between two physicality pioneers, David and Gilis.

Matches analysed:

Diego Elias vs Paul Coll, British Open 2023

Diego Elias vs Ali Farag, Qatar Classic 2023

Diego Elias vs Ali Farag, Paris Squash 2023

Diego Elias vs Mostafa Asal, Tournament of Champions 2024

Diego Elias vs Mazen Hesham, Windy City Open 2024

Jonathon Power vs Martin Heath, Tournament of Champions 2000

Jonathon Power vs Peter Nicol, Hong Kong Open 2002

Jonathon Power vs Peter Nicol, Super Series 2003

Jonathon Power vs Thierry Lincou, Super Series 2005

Jonathon Power vs David Palmer, Windy City Open 2006