Asymmetry

The sun rose with evil intent and flooded the sunken park with rays that reflected like an oiled arm on a beach determined to get an early tan off the bedewed playing field.  The basketball courts sat lonely with just a sheen of dust and motes to mark their areas and promises of future play.

A harsh set of plonk, plonk, plonks came from the pickleball courts as the early morning crowd of players determined to beat the temperature rise like antelope getting to the water hole before the lion wakes up.  Dressed for heat and sweat, the players struck the warmup balls with scant attention to technique or direction.  Muscles tried to warm as feet moved sluggishly in the preheat cool air.  Joints, not quite ready for the stresses of the day's play, pushed out chemicals that warned of yesterday's stresses not yet healed. Comments crossed the net as a mixture of friendship and humor, roiling in the early sun.  Plonk, plonk, plonk.  Finally, modest patience burned off like park mist, the call to play a game was uttered as the desire or need to eat once more at the chemical soup that derives from competition was upon the players...

In the chaotic model of life one might suggest there is very little symmetry.  Ben John's brother, Colin, suggests that doubles pickleball court setup should not be symmetrical due to angles.

I've been stumbling into this view for a while and it was a nice memory jog to read of Colin's comments.  Shall we explore this topic?

For example, you receive the serve which landed in the left hand court.  Your partner is at the kitchen and on your right.  Where do you want to return the serve?

The position of the return is going to present an angle for their third shot and you can force your opponent to either hit through your partner or around him.  

Let's assume that you put the ball on the right side of the court, which places it where your partner controls most of the angle of the third shot.

Partner has been to a couple of rodeos and knows to slide to his right and cover the sideline and sets up to cover the right side of his half of the court.  He should be looking for the sideline shot as highly probable.  Be ready to hit it before it comes at him.  Where to return it depends on how the opponents have moved to hit the third shot.

You must cover the rest of the court.  If you move to the center of the court, that will allow you to cover the large portion of the rest of the court.  You are not in a great position to cover an extreme shot to your left, but that shot is very difficult as it must cross close to the net and the sideline is not very deep there and it is easy for any ball with speed to sail long.

Notice that your team has abandoned twenty to thirty percent of the court.  But you have the sideline and middle well covered, which I see as a net benefit.

Let's try for the other side of the court.  You decide to return the ball, mostly straight forward as the second shot of the point.  You must move up the court and a bit towards the left sideline.  Your partner needs to sag in a lot towards the middle.  And now you leave the right sideline open deliberately.

Final case is if you return the second shot right up the middle.  The expected return is back up your middle.  Someone needs to look for the center shot.  Maybe the forehand, maybe the player who is already at the kitchen line, but it needs to be clear to both players who is going to take the expected shot.  I've been taught that the person already up at the kitchen is responsible for the middle shot.  I think this is reasonable.  

I would add some nuance to this.  If the second shot has some side spin, then a more angled return is more likely.  Also, know your opponents, as they usually like certain shots -- be careful of those.

John, the Canadian engineer, likes to straddle the middle of the court when his partner is returning the serve.  I've never seen him at a disadvantage in doing this.  I suspect that he shades to one side or the other depending on the location of the service return.  When this is done, the partner who returns the serve and then moves up to the kitchen line will have a very small area to cover.  With little to do, look for out balls and try to warn partner.  :-)

 Middle control and setup is done during dink rallies too, especially when there is cross court repetitive dinking going on.  The non-involved partners on both side, should be stationed pretty close to the center of the court.  You'd like to reach in and slap any poor dink that you can reach.  You'll also have to shuffle back and forth a bit as the ball crosses in front of you, as you have to cover a dink that doesn't go cross court.  This seems to be fairly hard to do and doesn't come up much.  In any case, the side to side movement is good practice to get used to.  Is there a Latin motto about moving before you need to?  Well, there ought to be...