Alright, let me show you something I am working on. I call it the “Pickleball Game Flow Worksheet”.
To keep things simple, I charted the first game of the PPA Women’s Doubles Bronze Medal match in Austin this weekend between Parenteau/Irvine and Koop/Johnson. You may click here to watch the match.
I may have missed one point during the game, which I charted while watching live. You’ll see the error in the attached image.
Here is the Pickleball Game Flow Worksheet.
I chart the score and server (first, second). At the end of the point, if there was what I deemed a clear error, I coded the player with an “E” followed by the type of shot that the error happened on. For instance, if an error happened on a punch shot, I coded the error as “EH”. Labels for the type of shot are at the bottom of the image above. Winners are coded with a “W” … if a player had an overhead winner I coded the shot as “WO”.
On the upper right hand side of the image I summed winners and errors by player. This game was an 11-6 win for Koop/Johnson, and you’ll quickly observe that my favorite player (Jessie Irvine) has more errors than winners (in my opinion – your mileage will vary) and hit a return of serve out and had errors on a pair of third shots. We can see how Jorja Johnson was targeted more often than Andrea Koop, and she held her own!
The worksheet allows me to show how the score progressed throughout the game.
Some say that pickleball is a game of runs. The image above demonstrates the runs in this game. Across 42 points we observe how Andrea/Jorja scored primarily during three separate runs, while Jessie/Catherine scored all but one point during one run.
Obviously the pros have sophisticated shot selections, combinations, and long rallies, all of which are oversimplified by this style of charting. Your amateur performance, of course, could benefit from this style of charting.
Let me know what you think … send me an email at kevinh@minethatdata.com
Thanks,
Kevin
Pickleball Analytics! 