Pickleball Rules for Beginners: Scoring, Serving, and the Kitchen

Pickleball is easy to start and slightly confusing to score. Four rules cover almost everything you need for your first few games: the serve, the two-bounce rule, the kitchen, and how points are called. Here they are in plain language.

The court and the lines

A pickleball court is 20 feet wide and 44 feet long, the same size for singles and doubles. The net sits 36 inches high at the sidelines and 34 inches at the centre. Seven feet back from the net on each side is the non-volley zone, universally called the kitchen. Everything past the kitchen line is the two service courts.

Serving

Serves must be underhand and go diagonally cross-court, landing past the opponent's kitchen line. You get one serve, not two like tennis. At least one foot has to be behind the baseline when you make contact.

• Volley serve: hit the ball out of the air with an upward motion, contact below your waist, with the paddle head below your wrist.
• Drop serve: drop the ball and hit it after it bounces. No restrictions on the stroke, which is why most beginners find it easier.
• A serve landing on the kitchen line is out. On every other line, touching the line is in.

The two-bounce rule

This one catches every new player. The serve must bounce before the receiving team hits it, and the return must bounce before the serving team hits it. Only after those two bounces can anyone hit the ball out of the air. In practice: serve, let it bounce, return it, let that bounce, then play normally. It exists to stop the serving team from rushing the net and ending rallies immediately.

The kitchen

You may not volley, meaning hit the ball out of the air, while standing in the kitchen or touching the kitchen line. You can step into the kitchen any time to play a ball that has already bounced, then step back out. The trap is momentum: if you volley near the line and your follow-through carries you into the kitchen, it is still a fault even though you hit the ball from outside.

Scoring in doubles

Games are usually to 11 points, win by 2. Only the serving team can score. That single fact explains why scores look lopsided in one direction: if your team never serves well, you never score.

The score is called as three numbers: your team's score, then the other team's score, then whether you are the first or second server. So 4-6-2 means your team has 4, the other team has 6, and you are the second server. When both partners on a team have lost their serve, the serve goes to the other team. At the very start of a game, the first serving team gets only one server before the serve changes hands.

You will also see rally scoring, where a point is awarded on every rally regardless of who served, in some leagues and pro formats. Traditional recreational and tournament play uses the side-out scoring above.

Common faults

• Hitting the ball out of bounds or into the net.
• Volleying while in the kitchen, or being carried in by your momentum.
• Letting the ball bounce twice on your side.
• Breaking the two-bounce rule on the serve or return.
• Serving into the wrong service court or short of the kitchen line.

Etiquette that is not in the rulebook

• Call the score out loud before every serve. It prevents most arguments.
• Line calls on your side of the net are yours to make, and you call them honestly, including against yourself.
• Say 'yours' or 'mine' with your partner early and loudly.
• At open play, rotate off when the game ends so waiting players get on court.

Rules do get updated, so check the current official rulebook before you play a sanctioned tournament. For recreational play, the four rules above cover almost everything that comes up. Once they feel automatic, the fastest improvement comes from the soft game, which is where paddle choice starts to matter.