Rarely Needed But Necessary Rules
This post is about two rarely needed but necessary rules that only came about because a curious person asked a "what if" question that I hadn't thought about before. The first one stems from our traditional side-out scoring to 11 win by 2 rule. The question: How long can such a game go if neither side gets two points ahead after 11? The second one is, what if a player gets injured during a game and cannot return and no substitute player is available? Read the post for the answers.
Cap on "win by 2" Scoring
Not long ago a player asked me what the cap was on our scoring in "win by 2" games? It took me a minute to process the question because it honestly had never come up before and I had never thought about it! You see, a game could theoretically go on forever under that scoring rule if neither side could get two points ahead after reaching 11. I couldn't remember ever having a round robin or league game go past 14-12, but obviously it could happen, hence the need for a cap rule in that situation. It didn't take much "Googling" to find stories about games that went into the 20s, but they must be pretty rare.
I've decided to set the cap at 15 for no better reasons than (1) in over 100 DUPR Round Robins hosted, and the first two seasons of East Bay Team Pickleball, I've never had a game go past 14-12, and (2) since we no longer place time limits on games in round robin or league play, it seemed like a reasonable cap to make sure a single game couldn't eat up any more time than that. This rule can be revisited if it ever becomes necessary, but until then, the rule will be that if and when a 15th point is scored in a 11 win by 2 game, that side wins by 1.
Game and Match Rules When a Player is Injured and Cannot Continue, and No Substitute is Available
This did almost happen once in a Summer Season League match, but a sub was found on the spot so the game and match continued without the need to make these rule decisions on the fly. But even then, it didn't occur to me that we need rules for this situation. Fortunately for all of us, a player who was thinking ahead about this possibility posed the question and forced me to think about it before it did happen.
The game in which the injury occurred would end with the injury. The opposing side would be awarded the win, and, if necessary, points would be added to ensure a DUPR-reportable score. By DUPR rules, at least 6 points must be scored by one side for the score to be reportable. So if the injury occurred before either side had 6 points, 6 points would be entered as the opposing side's score.
If this were in a fixed partner match situation with more games to play, the games involving the injured player and their partner would be forfeited to the opposing team. No score would be reported for those games.