A new study in Sports Engineering reports that an experimental 36-hole outdoor pickleball landed more consistently than a 40-hole reference ball when both were launched repeatedly under identical outdoor conditions.
Researchers compared an author-designed and manufactured 36-hole outdoor prototype with a 40-hole reference based on the geometry commonly used for commercial outdoor balls. Thirty balls of each design were launched over four loading cycles, producing 120 launches per design.
Landing positions were digitised from high-speed video and analysed using coordinate dispersion, distance from the design-specific centroid, and 95% bivariate data ellipses, a set of measures that together describe how tightly repeated landings cluster around a central point.
The 36-hole design showed a smaller mean centroid distance than the 40-hole reference: 43.41 ± 24.81 cm versus 54.56 ± 28.74 cm. The mean difference was −11.15 cm, with a 95% confidence interval of −17.97 to −4.32 cm and p = 0.0015.
Further analyses supported the same pattern. The X-axis standard deviation ratio for the 36-hole ball was 0.792 (95% bootstrap CI 0.674–0.931), and its 95% data-ellipse area ratio was 0.707 (95% bootstrap CI 0.531–0.930), indicating a landing distribution roughly 29% smaller in ellipse area under the tested conditions.
The authors note that the comparison concerns two complete ball configurations and does not isolate the causal effect of hole number or layout. Differences in manufacturing, surface characteristics, or other design features could contribute alongside the perforation count itself.
The study was conducted under monitored outdoor conditions and fixed launcher settings, so the results apply to that specific setup rather than to all playing environments or launch conditions.
Perforation geometry may influence pickleball flight, but the authors emphasise that repeated-launch evidence has remained limited, which motivated this controlled comparison of two complete ball designs.
The findings suggest that, under the tested conditions, the tested 36-hole configuration was associated with a more compact landing distribution, a result that may interest equipment designers studying how perforation patterns affect outdoor ball behaviour.
Subject of Research: Landing dispersion comparison of 36-hole and 40-hole outdoor pickleballs under repeated launches
Article Title: Landing dispersion of 36- and 40-hole pickleballs
Article References: Lin, P., Huang, D., Chen, Y., & Zheng, Z. (2026). Landing dispersion of 36- and 40-hole pickleballs. Sports Engineering, 29(2), Article 43. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12283-026-00577-0
Image Credits: AI Generated
DOI: 10.1007/s12283-026-00577-0
Keywords: pickleball, landing dispersion, perforation geometry, ball flight, sports engineering, outdoor balls, high-speed video, centroid distance, data ellipses, launch testing, Landing, dispersion
News Source: Denise Maddox. (October 28, 2026). Fewer holes, tighter landings: 36-hole pickleball prototype shows more compact flight dispersion. Scienmag.
