The probabilities of winning a racquetball doubles match motivate a fairer side-out scoring scheme for singles and team events

Abstract

Abstract We explore the probabilities of winning a best-of-three doubles racquetball match given the probabilities that each of the participants wins a point while serving. We restrict our attention to the cases where these probabilities are between 0.4 and 0.6 for all participants; in other words, the cases where all of the players are moderately evenly matched. In doing so, we find it sensible to suggest changes to the side-out scoring schemes in singles and in team events. These changes would cause each game played to be more fair while preserving the fairness of a match, for which there seems to be adequate impetus.