The 2018 Margaritaville USA Pickleball National Championships Mixed Pro Doubles final saw a familiar matchup between Simone Jardim/Kyle Yates and Lucy Kovalova/Matt Wright—the same match-up that we saw seven months earlier in the 2018 US Open Pickleball Mixed Pro Doubles Championship. Although a familiar match-up, the outcome was very different, as Lucy Kovalova/Matt Wright took down the reigning US Open champs, Simone Jardim/Kyle Yates.
As with the 2018 US Open, we were curious what the breakdown of shots would be at the highest level of pickleball between male and female teammates. We were also curious if we could find any trends that led to different victors—Lucy Kovalova/Matt Wright. Based on our own calculations, here is what we found:
- Both the 2018 Margaritaville USA Pickleball National Championships Mixed Pro Doubles final and the 2018 US Open Pickleball Mixed Pro Doubles Championship match lasted 3 games. However, 1,519 shots were played in the 3-game 2018 National Championships final, compared to 994 shots played in the 3-game 2018 US Open final—that’s 525 more shots! These pros really exercised some patience in the 2018 National Championships!
- Similar to the 2018 US Open, both Simone Jardim and Lucy Kovalova had to zone in on the most shots for their respective pickleball team duos. Simone took about 63.44% of the match shots for her and Kyle Yates, while Lucy took about 65.58% of the match shots for her and Matt Wright.
- Lucy Kovalova/Matt Wright mixed up their targets much more than compared to the 2018 US Open, as they targeted Simone Jardim much less, and got Kyle Yates much more engaged, than in the 2018 US Open. Looking at the numbers, Simone took about 15% less, and Kyle took about 15% more, of the match shots for their team (Simone took 63.44% of the match shots in the 2018 National Championships, as compared to 78.44% in the 2018 US Open; Kyle took 36.56% of the match shots in the 2018 National Championships, as compared to 21.56% in the 2018 US Open).
- Lucy Kovalova and Matt Wright seemed to remain consistent between the 2018 National Championships and the 2018 US Open (Lucy took 65.58% of the match shots in the 2018 National Championships, as compared to 66.33% in the 2018 US Open; Matt took 34.42% of the match shots in the 2018 National Championships, as compared to 33.67% in the 2018 US Open).
What are your thoughts on these numbers? Could you stay in a 1,500-point pickleball match?
