New to the sport? The pickleball rules for beginners boil down to seven things: how to serve, when the ball has to bounce, where you can’t volley, how to call a ball in or out, how a rally ends, how to count the score, and where to stand in doubles. Learn those and you can walk onto a court today without anyone having to stop and explain.
The court
A pickleball court is 20 feet wide and 44 feet long, about a third the size of a tennis court, the same footprint as a badminton court. The net sits at 36 inches on the sidelines and dips to 34 inches in the middle.
Three markings worth knowing by name:
- The baseline. The back line. You serve from behind it.
- The kitchen. Officially called “the non-volley zone.” The 7-foot box on each side of the net.
- The service boxes. The two rectangles on each side behind the kitchen. Serves have to land in the one diagonal from the server.
Serving rules
Serving is the most rule-dense part of the game:
- Stand behind the baseline.
- Serve diagonally, into the service box across the court.
- Serve underhand. Contact the ball below your navel, with the paddle head lower than your wrist and your arm moving upward. Start below your belly button and hit low to high; that covers all three.
- Or skip all that with a drop serve. Drop the ball out of your hand, let it bounce, and hit it. None of the height rules apply, so you can swing however you like.
- Clear the kitchen. A serve that lands in the kitchen or on the kitchen line is a fault.
- One attempt. There’s no second serve like in tennis.
- A serve off the net is live. Clip the net, land in the correct box, and the ball is in play. Tennis calls that a “let” and replays it; pickleball doesn’t.
The two-bounce rule
The rule beginners forget most often. (Also called the “double-bounce rule.”) After the serve, the ball has to bounce once on each side before anyone can hit it out of the air:
- The serve bounces on the receiving side.
- The return bounces back on the serving side.
- After that, you can hit it out of the air.
Why it exists: without it, the serving team could rush the net and smash the return. It buys both teams time to get into position, which is why rallies develop.
The kitchen (the non-volley zone)
The rule is exactly what the official name says: you cannot volley while touching the kitchen. A volley means hitting the ball out of the air, before it bounces.
What that means in practice:
- Standing in the kitchen (or on its line) and hitting a ball out of the air is a fault.
- If your momentum carries you into the kitchen after a volley, that’s a fault too. So is your hat falling in mid-volley.
- You can step into the kitchen any time to play a ball that has bounced. That’s the soft “dink” rally you see good players trading at the net. Just get back out before volleying again.
Watch your momentum. New players get called on this constantly: you volley near the line, then stumble a step into the kitchen. Still a fault, even if the ball is already dead. A volley is over only when you’ve stopped moving.
In or out?
The line rule is one sentence: a ball touching any line is in. There’s one exception: a serve that touches the kitchen line is a fault.
At open play there’s no referee, so players call their own lines. Three rules keep that fair:
- You call the lines on your own side. Don’t call a ball that landed on their side, even when you’re sure. Their call on their side stands, even if you’d swear it caught the line.
- If you’re not certain, it’s in. You have to see actual space between the ball and the line to call it out. If you and your partner disagree, or neither of you got a good look, it’s in.
- Call it loud and call it now. An “out” that arrives after you’ve already played the ball back doesn’t count. The rally stands.
In recreational play, don’t argue a line call. And if you’re sure your own shot landed out and they called it in, say so and give them the point. Calling against yourself is always allowed.
How a rally ends
The ball stays in play until one side ends it by:
- hitting the ball into the net or out of bounds (lines are in),
- letting it bounce twice on one side of the net,
- getting hit by the ball before it bounces,
- committing one of the less obvious faults: volleying from the kitchen, hitting before the two bounces, the wrong player returning the serve.
Whichever side did that loses the rally. What the winner gets (a point or just the serve) depends on the score.
How scoring works
For standard recreational scoring, the kind you’ll see at almost every court:
- Games go to 11 points, win by 2.
- Only the serving side can score. The receiving team doesn’t get a point even if they win the rally — they win the serve instead.
- In doubles, both partners serve before the serve passes to the other team: server one, then server two. One exception: the team that serves first in a game gets only one server for that turn, and that server calls themselves server two.
The confusing part is the call. Doubles scores have three numbers: your score, their score, and whether you’re your team’s first or second server. “4–2–1” means your team has 4, theirs has 2, and you’re your team’s first server. The doubles game always starts at “0–0–2” — 0 points for both sides, serving from the second server.
Who serves first? Officially, any fair method works: spin a paddle, guess a number. At open play someone just volunteers.
Say your team serves first:
- “0–0–2.” The opening call: your score, their score, and the game’s first server counts as server two.
- You win the rally. “1–0–2.” You and your partner swap sides, and the same person serves again. (Side-swapping has its own rules; they get a section below.)
- You lose the next rally. The game’s first turn only gets one server, so the serve passes over. They call “0–1–1.”
- They lose that rally. Nobody scores and nobody moves. Their second server takes over. “0–1–2.”
- They lose again. Side out, your team’s turn to serve. The person standing on the right serves first and calls “1–0–1.”
In singles there’s no third number. Serve from the right side when your score is even, from the left when it’s odd.
Always call the score before serving, loud enough for the other team to hear.
Who stands where in doubles
The part that trips up almost every new doubles player: when do you and your partner switch sides? Less often than you’d think.
One picture first. You and Pat against Cam and Dee, and you’re serving:
Before the rally:
Cam | Dee
---------+--------- <- the net
Pat | You* (* = server)
Your team wins the point. Only you and Pat swap:
Cam | Dee <- receivers never move
---------+---------
You* | Pat (same server, other box)
- Only the serving team switches, and only after winning a point. You score, you and your partner swap sides, and the same person serves again from the other box.
- The receiving team never switches. You hold the side you’re on until your team gets the serve back.
- After a side out, the right-side player serves first. Whoever is standing on the right when the serve comes back to your team is server one for that turn.
- Even score, starting sides. Whenever your team’s score is even, you and your partner should be on the sides you started the game on; odd, you’re swapped.
- The right person has to return the serve. Whoever is standing diagonal from the server takes it. If their partner reaches over and returns it instead, that’s a fault.
Everything else about position is strategy, not rules. The usual shape is both partners at the kitchen line as soon as the two-bounce rule lets them get there, moving side to side as a pair.
Singles vs doubles
Rule-wise you already know both games: same court, same serve, same kitchen, same two bounces. Singles drops the third number from the score call and all the partner logistics; the main thing it adds is running.
If you’re brand new, start with doubles. Most casual play is doubles anyway: four players, shorter points, less court to cover, and more people to chit-chat with.
Five beginner mistakes to skip
- Volleying from the kitchen. Everyone does it at least once.
- Forgetting to let the return bounce and smashing it out of the air. That’s a fault.
- Hanging back at the baseline. Once both sides have taken their bounce, work your way up to the kitchen line. That’s where points are won.
- Not calling the score before serving. Call it loud and clear before every serve.
- Serving like it’s tennis. Below the navel, upward swing. Or just use the drop serve.
Now go play
Pickleball is social and easy to start: join a pickup game or any open play on a public court, say you’re new, and someone will wave you in.
The rules were the easy part. The harder part is usually getting four people on a court at the same time.
Know the rules, now find a game: create one on Panana and invite your friends.