If "Conventional wisdom says the server has the advantage
in singles, the receiver in doubles", then CW could really
use some help.
Those advantages are POTENTIAL only.
Think about professional tennis.
If all you ever watched was WTA matches with women 5 ft 7 inches
and under, you might reasonably ask "Serve advantage... where?"
That is because players of that physique and power level do not
get much advantage on serve.
But if you watched the top men at Wimbledon, eg Pete Sampras,
Goran Ivanisevic, etc, you would probably want a rules change
because you would be sick of seeing nothing but "ace, service
winnner, weak return with an easy net putaway".
The point being that the geometry and general layout of a the
tennis court offer a POTENTIAL huge advantage to the server. But
it takes the right kind of player to demonstrate it.
Now in jai-alai it is not so different. If the only singles points
you ever watched consisted of Goiko and Elizegi at Miami, and
Arriaga and Celaya at Dania, and only when they were on top of
their games, you might reckon the serve advantage to be in the
75 to 80% range. Seriously.
OTOH, if you focused exclusively on some of the early game backcourt
guys, you might conclude that it is a disadvantage to serve, since
they frequently have more singles success when receiving.
So, as I see it, the entire premise is fatally flawed because
you are lumping every kind of player together and expecting the
average result to be meaningful.
Just look at the last couple of years in Orlando. Every player
on the roster, no matter how young or old, tall or short, thick
or thin, was drafted into playing singles. Do you think they all
got an advantage when serving?
My hypothesis would be that if you had several independent experts
watch the singles games and use their judgement to tell you who
gets advantage when serving, as well as who gets nothing, you
would then be able to do some useful data mining.
