HOW TO PLAY PICKLEBALL

How do you play pickleball? We’re so glad you asked! Grab a paddle, lace up your sturdiest sneakers, and get ready to have the time of your life. Here’s what you need to know to hit the court.

First Things First 

A pickleball court looks a lot like a tennis court, but smaller (44’ by 20’ to be exact—wink, wink!). There’s a centerline that delineates the right and left sides of the court. You can play singles, but most people like to play doubles, with one player on each side of the centerline. 

There are two main types of shots. A groundstroke, which hits the ball off of a bounce, and a volley, which hits the ball out of the air.

On either side of the net is a seven-foot area called the Non-Volley Zone, or “the kitchen.” The meaning of this area is right in the name—you can’t hit any volleys from within this area, not even with a toe on the line!

 

Learn the Basics

Ok, now that you know that, you’re ready for the basics.

1. Start with a serve. Each round starts with a serve, hit from outside the baseline—the short boundary line at the perimeter of the court. You can hit the ball out of the air, or bounce it on the ground first, but either way your serve MUST be underhand. For a serve to be good, you must also hit it diagonally, and clear the kitchen line while staying within the court’s perimeter.
2. The two-bounce rule. Once the ball’s been served, it needs to bounce once on each side of the net. After that, groundstrokes and volleys are both fair game. (Unless, remember, you’re in the kitchen! No volleys there. This rule is part of what makes pickleball so fun.)
3. Play to a fault. The ball stays in play until a player commits a fault. A few of the most common faults include hitting the ball into the net, hitting the ball out of bounds, volleying before the ball’s bounced on both sides after a serve, volleying from the kitchen, or, on a serve, hitting the ball so that it lands in the kitchen.
4. How to score. Only the serving team can win a point, which happens when the receiving team faults. After winning a point, the serving players switch sides with one another before the ball is served again. (Keep in mind, the receiving team does not alternate sides! Only the serving players switcheroo.) Both players on the serving team get a chance to serve before relinquishing the ball to the other side. That means, the team’s first server continues serving until the serving team faults. Then the second player on the serving team serves. When the serving team faults again, the ball goes to the opposing team. (The serving, switching, and scoring can be a little confusing at first, so we’ve created a handy guide that explains it all in more detail!) 
5. Be a winner. The first team to reach 11 points wins—as long as that win has a 2-point margin. In other words, if you hit 11 points, but the opposing team has 10, you keep right on playing till someone wins by 2 points. Go on, you got this!

   

PICKLEBALL SCORING: A BEGINNER’S GUIDE  

Once you get the hang of it, pickleball scoring (and the subsequent positioning) will be second nature. But it can definitely cause some confusion at first. Here’s a breakdown of how to do it.

 

How Do You Win?

Let’s start at the end and work backward! The first team or player to score 11 points, by a margin of 2, wins. (That means if you score 11 points, but your opponent has 10, you’ve got to keep playing until someone’s won by 2 points.) Now, let’s talk about how we get there. 

 

Points can only be scored on a serve. The receiving team or player cannot win a point (but they do win back the right to serve, which is just as important).

 

Doubles Scoring  

The score is made up of three numbers, and the serving player calls it out before putting the ball in play. The first number is the serving team’s score. The second number is the receiving team’s score. And the third number will always be 1 or 2, as it represents the serving team’s server number.

 

Doubles Positioning + First Serve Exception

Both players on the serving team get a chance to serve before relinquishing the ball to their opponents, except at the beginning of a game. Only one player from the starting team gets to serve (also known as the first server exception rule). So, the score called out before the very first serve will always be 0-0-2. And here’s what it looks like. 

  

After a coin flip decides which team will serve first, the player on the right side (also known as even court) serves diagonally across the net. If the receiving team commits a fault, the serving team gets a point. The serving player then moves to the left side (or odd court), and serves again, diagonally. The first server continues alternating sides, serving diagonally, and scoring points until the serving team commits a fault. (Though the serving team continues alternating, remember that the receiving team never switches sides!) Then the ball goes to the other team—not the second player on the serving team. This is called a side out (as in, the serving side is out and the ball goes to the opponent to be served).

 

The same serving-positioning sequence starts all over again, this time for the opposite team.  Whoever is on the right side of the court is server 1, and serves the ball diagonally. When the serving team faults, the ball goes to server 2 on the serving team, who will serve diagonally from whichever side they’re on. When the serving team faults again, the ball gets relinquished. This pattern continues throughout the game. 

 

Here’s a cheat sheet to make it easy:

1. The first serve for each side starts on the right side.
2. If the serving team wins a point, the serving team’s players switch positions before serving again.
3. When the serving team defaults, the ball goes to server 2 on the serving team (unless it’s the start of the game).
4. If the serving team wins a point, the serving team’s players switch positions before serving again.
5. When the serving team defaults again, the ball goes to the receiving team, aka side out.

 

Three Things to Remember: 1) The server always calls the score before serving. 2) The receiving team never switches positions. 3) Both players on the serving team get a chance to serve, except at the start of a game.

 

Scoring Trick: It can be hard to keep track of the score and all the switching at first, so here’s a little trick to help you figure out if you’re doing it right. When a team’s first server is on the right side of the court, that team’s score should be even. If it’s not, either the score was called wrong, or the players need to switch positions.  

 

Singles Scoring  

Singles scoring and positioning works exactly the same way, only it’s much simpler since there’s only one server on each side. That means the score only has two numbers: The first number is the serving player’s score. The second number is the receiving player’s score. Easy-peasy!

 

HOW TO GET A PICKLEBALL RATING

Once you start playing, watching, or simply thinking about pickleball, you’ll hear people throw around numbers like 2.0, 5.0, and pretty much any variation in between (and sometimes above!). No, it’s not their pickleball GPA, but it’s not that different either. Pickleball players are rated by skill level—this makes it easier to match up with similarly skilled players, and it’s also a great way to track how much all your practice is paying off (a rating bump can be extremely satisfying!). Pickleball ratings range from 1.0 (beginners) to 5.0+ (total pros). So, how do you get rated? There are a few different options.

 

Self-Rating

Self-rating makes it easy to find out your skill level. All you have to do is assess your pickleball abilities and rate yourself accordingly. Check out the guidelines from USA Pickleball. They take into account how well you can serve, rally, drive, and return. As your control, strategy, and consistency increase, so will your rating!

 

Tournament Results

Picklers who play in tournaments will get a UTPR, or a USA Pickleball Tournament Player Rating. This rating is usually a bit more accurate than a self-rating (which isn’t too surprising), and is in place to help make sure 4.5 rated players don’t come in and sweep a tournament of 3.0 players. A UTPR is calculated using a player’s tournament win/loss results (as long as the tournament is sanctioned by USA Pickleball), and players get separate ratings for singles, doubles, and mixed doubles.

 

Dynamic Universal Pickleball Rating

The Dynamic Universal Pickleball Rating, or DUPR (rhymes with “super”) for short, is the rating system developed and adopted by Major League Pickleball. Rather than counting only wins and losses, the DUPR system also takes into account how many points you won in a match, and what type of match it was, whether recreational play, a league match, or a sanctioned or unsanctioned tournament. All you have to do is go to mydupr.com and register for a free account. (If you’ve ever played in a pickleball tournament or league, you probably already have a DUPR and just need to log in to claim it.) The more you play, the more accurate your rating will be—DUPR’s algorithm uses a player’s last 30 singles matches, or 60 doubles matches. The good news is, you only need one match result to get started!