A glass box in the East Wintergarden, and the best seats around it

A glass court inside a glass hall

Every March, give or take, a squash court made entirely of glass is assembled inside the East Wintergarden on Bank Street, and for about a week some of the best players in the world compete on it in front of a crowd that has mostly walked over from the office. The Canary Wharf Classic has been a fixture of the professional tour for around two decades, and it remains one of the more intimate events on its calendar.

The Wintergarden is a tall, glass roofed events hall at the eastern end of Jubilee Park, and it suits the tournament unusually well. The court stands in the middle, banks of seating rise around it, and through the roof you can see the towers while the ball moves faster than the eye can properly follow. It is professional sport in a room not much bigger than a large restaurant, and that closeness is the whole appeal.

How the week runs

The draw starts early in the week and narrows each evening: the first rounds, then the quarter finals, the semi finals and finally the final itself. Most sessions are timed for after work, with more than one match an evening, and the later rounds are given the prime slots.

A match is the best of five games, each played to eleven points, and it can last anything from half an hour to well over an hour. That is why the finishing time of any session is an estimate rather than a promise, and why anything booked for afterwards should allow for a long fifth game.

The organisers announce the exact dates each year, usually well in advance, and the event's own website carries the schedule and the ticket sales. Take the dates from there rather than from memory or from a listing of last year's tournament.

How the tickets work

Tickets are sold by session rather than by day, so an evening ticket covers the matches in that session and nothing else. The early rounds are the easiest to get and often the best value in sporting terms, because the draw is still full of players good enough to win it. The semi finals and the final sell first, and for those it is worth buying as soon as the sale opens.

In some years the organisers have offered packages that combine a seat with food or a hospitality area, and for a client evening those are worth asking about. What they include changes from year to year, so read the current details rather than assuming. This note gives no prices, because any figure printed here would be out of date by the time the court goes up.

Where to sit around a glass court

Three positions give you three different matches. Behind the back wall, looking down the length of the court, you see the game as the players do and as television shows it: the length of every drive, the angles off the side walls, the moment a player is dragged out of position. For anybody who plays, this is the best seat in the building.

Along the sides you see the pace. Side on, the speed of the ball and the movement of the players are startling, and a rally looks like a fight rather than a geometry lesson. It is the better seat for somebody new to squash, because the athleticism reads immediately even when the tactics do not.

Height changes it again. The front rows are close enough to hear the players breathing and the ball striking the glass; the upper rows see the whole court at once and read the patterns better. For a first visit, a few rows up behind the back wall is the right compromise. For a guest who does not play, the side, low down, where the pace is loudest.

The dinner after the final

The final is the evening to build a dinner around. Book the table on the day you buy the tickets, not the day of the match. Set it for about ninety minutes after the session is due to begin, which allows for a long match and a slow exit from the seats, and choose somewhere within five minutes' walk of the Wintergarden so that nobody is sitting in a car while the conversation is still on the last rally.

Wood Wharf is the nearest cluster of good rooms, a few minutes east, with Hawksmoor's steak room among them; Canada Square and its restaurants are a similar walk west. Both suit a table of four or six that wants to argue about the fifth game over something substantial.

Dress for the office rather than the sport. The hall is warm, the crowd comes straight from the towers, and a jacket covers the whole evening from the first serve to the last glass.

A client evening, or a companion who follows the play

The Classic makes a good client evening because it gives a table something to talk about that is not work. It is also a good evening to bring a companion who has been briefed on who else is coming, which is what client tables and black tie is for: a short written brief beforehand, three hours at £700 for a session and dinner, four at £900 when the dinner is going to run.

On the early twenties column, Roxi is competitive about small things, of which a squash match is full, and will have picked a player to back by the end of the first game. Angelika swims with a squad at six in the morning and watches athletes with a practitioner's eye, which makes her good at explaining to a table why a rally was won. Tiffany grew up around restaurants and is the person to have at dinner afterwards, when somebody needs the table held ten minutes longer.

The Canary Wharf page covers the estate around the Wintergarden. If there is a session to reach and only a short window before it, the note on a 45 minute dinner shows how to eat properly first. Send Maude the session date and she will build the evening around the first serve.