He flows like liquid around the court.
Whippet-thin, he skitters and hops and stops and starts like snowmelt fghting gravity in a mountain brook. He’s incredi- bly fast. His speed is beautiful. It is not just the hyperkinetic acceleration and economy of movement and graceful balance but also the deadly anticipation. He has decades of ball-striking experience in various racquet sports at the highest level. He knows where the ball is going.
“If people haven’t seen the game before and see him play,” said Jonathan Larken, his doubles partner, “then they always comment: ‘He looks so much faster than everyone else.’ Everyone else on courts looks fustered and he looks like he’s hitting a beach ball. He’s got so much more time than you. The only time I get close to slowing down his antici- pation when I am playing singles with him is when I do something unorthodox and unex- pected. Of course, it is very hard to do that and consistently hit a great shot. You’re just as apt to make an error.”
“He’s extraordinary in what he can do,” said another partner and regular opponent, Neil Smith. “He’s doing things that no one else has done before. A lot of people have many or most of the skills. When I was world champion, I read the ball well but wasn’t ex- tremely fast. But he doesn’t have a weakness. He’s quick, reads the game well, moves ef- ciently, gets early to the ball—gets there so early he has options.”
James Stout, the world champion of rac- quets, is one of the most extraordinary ath- letes on the planet, and yet no one knows about him. Over his career, probably less than one thousand diferent people have col- lectively seen him strike a ball in racquets, the sport he’ll be remembered for.
A left-handed polymathic genius with a racquet, Stout played professional squash for four years after high school. Based in Bel- gium, he entered the World Championships and the Commonwealth Games and won the 2005 Island Games softball doubles title. He reached world No. 116.