Here is the shot chart for 3rd shots from the Mens 4.0 35+ Gold Medal match at the 2021 Margaritaville National Championship. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9a4w6qU0ZA
The team that won the match (in two games) is shown at the top of the image. Here is the code for the image:
- Circles are Drop Shots.
- X’s are Drives.
- Green Color = Team Won The Point.
- Red Color = Team Lost The Point.
Tell me what you see when you look at the image?
Let’s analyze the top portion of the table. The winning team is depicted at the top of the table. Visually, you can see that they hit a lot more drop shots. When they hit drop shots from the middle of the court, they won 9/12, 75%. Drop shots from the outsides of the court led to points 3/11 = 27%. Drives can be divided into four sections on the court … back right, back middle, back left, short middle. Back Right Drives converted at 2/7 = 29%. Back Middle Drives converted at 4/10 = 40%. Back Left Drives converted at 0 for 1. Short Middle drives converted well, at 5/5 = 100%.
The team that lost is depicted at the bottom of the image. Their 3rd shot profile is different, mixing in a lot more drives than the team that won. This team didn’t attempt any drop shots in the middle of the court – they saw these balls as an opportunity to drive the ball. Left side drops converted at 3/7, 42%. Right side drops converted at 1/5, 20%. Overall their drops converted at 4/12, 33%, their opposition converted at 12/23, 52%. So yes, a solid soft game including quality third shot drops matters!!
Let’s evaluate their drives … the losing team (bottom) drove a lot of balls (25 out of 37 third shots were driven). However, their probability of success was less when driving from the baseline (5/16, 31%) whereas their success driving short returns of serve was great (7/9, 78%).
Both teams had significant success on short returns of serve. The winning team (the guy with the white hat) scored 8/11 (73%) on short returns … the losing team (orange shirt guy) scored 7/10 (70% on short returns). Yes, a deep return of serve matters a lot. Deep returns of serve converted at 43% for the winning team, 33% for the losing team.
Rallies were not particularly long. Both teams were willing to drop/dink when necessary, but they attacked persistently. Here are the number of points won by rally length.
The winning team (White Hat) controlled the match at all levels of point depth with the exception of 4th/5th/6th shots – in those cases, the losing team hit drives that were difficult to return/attack.
More than half of all points ended within six shots (45 points out of 88).
Seventy-seven percent of points ended within ten shots. Both teams attacked relentlessly, slowing down when there were few options to pressure the opposition. Drops / Dinks matter, absolutely. Putting pressure on the opposition matters as well. We have to be good at both. The difference in this match came on quality third shot drops for the winning team – they converted those shots at a higher rate than their opposition did with baseline drives on third shots.
Drive those short returns of serve to the middle of the court.
Drop those deep balls.
Pickleball Analytics! 