Mark Talbott

Mark Talbott is an American squash coach and former professional squash player. He is known as one of the all-time great players of hardball squash (a North American variant of squash played with a faster-moving ball and on slightly smaller courts than the international "softball" squash game).

Talbott was inducted into the United States Squash Hall of Fame in 2000. He was the World Professional Squash Association Player of the Year eight times and an Olympic Athlete of the Year in 1991, `92, and `95. In addition, he captained the first USA Team to compete in the Pan American Games in 1995, earned the Sharif Khan Award for Sportsmanship in 1991, and won the United States Squash Racquets Association (USSRA) President’s Cup in 1989.

Raised in Dayton, Ohio, Talbott graduated from the Mercersburg Academy in 1978. He joined the World Professional Squash Association hardball tour in 1980 and was ranked as the World No. 1 hardball squash player for 13 years, from 1983–95. He won 70% of the tournaments he entered during that period.

Talbott is considered the most dominant American squash player in history. His strongest international rival is Sharif Khan, a Pakistani-born player who emigrated to Canada in the late-1960s, and who retired shortly before Talbott emerged on the scene. The most significant factor which mitigates against Talbott being the greatest hardball squash player of all-time is his record against Sharif's distant cousin Jahangir Khan. In the mid-1980s, Talbott had begun to establish himself as the most dominant player in the hardball squash game, while Jahangir was the clear leading player on the international softball squash circuit. During 1983-86, Jahangir decided to test his ability on the North American hardball circuit. Talbott and Jahangir faced each other on 11 occasions in hardball tournaments during this period (all in tournament finals), and Jahangir won 10 of their encounters. Talbott did however manage to beat Jahangir once, in the final of the Boston Open in 1984, a feat which no player on the international softball circuit managed in the 1981-86 period when Jahangir compiled a five-year winning streak.

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