Ninh explains the Rules of Pickleball The object of the game is for you or your
team to score points and to win sets faster than your opponent.
Pickleball is a mixture of tennis, badminton and table tennis and is seen as an easy to
learn, less stressful, accessible alternative to these traditional sports.
It’s a lot easier on the body and is perfect for kids, the older generation and anyone
in between.
Like the other racket sports, it can be played as singles, where one person plays against
another person.
Or doubles, where two people play against two people.
So … it’s tennis then?
No, not quite, let’s start from the beginning …
A pickleball court is the same size as a badminton court, 44ft long by 20ft wide, and the net
is 3ft above the ground.
The lines are similar to that of a badminton court, with lines 7ft away from the mid line
of the net, this collective area is the no volley zone – more on that later.
The racket is a solid lightweight paddle and the ball is perforated, very similar to a
wiffle ball.
This makes it easier to hit the ball with less effort and strain on the body than in
tennis, squash or badminton.
The game starts with one player making a serve.
To do this, they must stand behind the service line and hit the ball into this diagonal area
of the opponent’s court.
They must serve by striking the ball underhand and below the waist.
The opponent is allowed a maximum of one bounce to hit the ball back over the net onto the
other players court.
Unique to Pickleball, players must observe the two-bounce rule after a serve, meaning
that the opponent must let the ball bounce on the floor once, and the server must also
let the ball bounce on the floor once.
This is to eliminate any unfair advantage gained by either side.
The idea is to hit the ball onto your opponents court and for your opponent not to be able
to hit it back at all, making the opponent hit the ball out of bounds, or making the
ball bounce on the floor twice.
If you manage to successfully hit the ball onto your opponent’s court without them
returning the favour, this is known as a rally.
You win the rally but you only score points if you served the ball.
So if you serve and win the rally, you get one point.
If you didn’t serve and win the rally, you only win the next serve.
The service rules differ slightly for doubles, and I’ll explain more on that later.
Once a player has won 11 points and is at least 2 points ahead, they win a set.
The person or pair that wins two sets faster than their opponent, wins.
If the scores are 10-10, they keep playing until one player or pair is 2 points ahead.
There is one other unique rule in Pickleball that you really ought to know about.
During open play, you can hit the ball after it has bounced on the floor once, or without
bouncing at all, known as a volley.
But this is the no volley zone, meaning that if you’re standing in this area, you cannot
volley the ball and you must let the ball bounce on the floor.
Failure to do this result in you losing the rally.
The no-volley zone is also known as the ‘kitchen’.
There’s a few other things that you can’t do in Pickleball.
You cannot hit the ball outside the area of play.
You cannot hit the ball into the net and for it to land on your side of the court.
You cannot hit the ball twice in succession.
You cannot touch the ball with any part of your body except with the racket.
and as earlier mentioned – you cannot volley in the no volley zone.
If you commit any of these infractions, this results in your opponents winning the rally.
Now that’s basically Pickleball in a nutshell, but there’s a few things you’ll need to
understand before playing or going to a game.
For example … Singles Service Rules
A new server will always serve the ball from the right-hand side, and should they win the
rally, they’ll serve the next rally from the left hand side and this keeps alternating
until they lose the serve.
Their opponent will then serve the ball from their right-hand side.
Doubles Service Rules In doubles, each player gets to serve, and
like in singles, the first server serves the ball from the right.
However, if they lose the rally – their partner also gets to serve from the other
side.
This is known as the second serve.
Should they lose that rally also, this is the end of their serve and now their opponents
get their two serves.
This is known as a Side-out.
Remember, you can only score points if you serve the ball, so it’s important to maintain
serve as much as you can in this game.
Pickleball is literally that simple to understand, without all the complicated rules of other
sports.
It’s easy to pick up and play, requires minimal levels of fitness and if you’re
interested, it’s becoming one of the fastest growing sports worldwide.
It’s not too hard to find a club near you.
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enjoy Pickleball!
Ninh Ly – www.ninh.co.uk - @NinhLyUK