"Most pickleball games are played as doubles. (You singles players out there can either skip this posting or keep it in mind for when you do play with a partner.) Doubles is a team sport, and I believe two players working well together will usually beat two players who don't work together as a team, even if the latter are each better individual players. I did a little research online to back up my thinking. While the statistics I found have to do with tennis, I believe they probably apply to pickleball as well. The top men’s doubles tennis teams at the professional level don’t usually include players who are ranked very highly as singles players. There are exceptions and, in the case of the women’s teams, at least one of the doubles players is often a great singles player, too. But statistics indicate that two players who work well together often beat two players who may be individually better than they are but don’t work as well as a team.
When we pair up with someone on the court, we almost never spend enough time discussing strategy or figuring out how we can capitalize on our combined strengths and minimize our combined weaknesses, yet that would be the logical thing to do since it would win us more points. Even people who have been playing with the same person for a long time should occasionally take a look at how they play together and examine their strategy critically to see how it could be improved." Gale Leach (The Art of Pickleball.)
The Canadian National Tournament is in July 2012, now is the time to start finding & getting in sync with a partner for best results.
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