Pickleball rules: how to play

Pickleball is easy to play badly within ten minutes and takes a season to play well. The rules are genuinely simple, but two of them — the two-bounce rule and the non-volley zone — are unlike anything in tennis or badminton, and they trip up almost every new player.

This page covers everything in the order you will meet it on court. If you only have five minutes before your first game, read the beginner version instead.

The court

A pickleball court measures 44 feet by 20 feet — identical to a badminton doubles court, which is why so many Malaysian badminton halls convert so easily. The same dimensions apply to singles and doubles, unlike tennis.

The serve

The serve is the most heavily regulated shot in pickleball and the one most commonly played illegally at social level. Three conditions must all be met.

1. 01Contact below the waist. The ball must be struck below your natural waistline, with the paddle head below your wrist at contact.
2. 02Upward arc. The serving motion must move upward. This is what makes it a genuine underhand serve rather than a flat drive.
3. 03Behind the baseline, diagonal target. Both feet behind the baseline at contact, and the ball must land in the diagonally opposite service court, beyond the kitchen line.

A drop serve is also legal: drop the ball from your hand without adding force, let it bounce, then strike it. Because the ball is already low, the below-waist requirement is easier to satisfy. Many recreational players find it more consistent. The serving rules page covers faults, foot faults and the let-serve rule in full.

The two-bounce rule

This is the rule that makes pickleball what it is, and the one new players break most often.

After the serve, the receiving side must let it bounce. After the return, the serving side must let that bounce too. Only once both of those bounces have happened may either side hit the ball out of the air.

The reason is tactical. Without it, the serving team would rush the net and volley the return, and serving would be an overwhelming advantage. The two-bounce rule forces the serving team to stay back for one shot, which is what creates the third shot drop — the defining skill of the sport.

The kitchen

The non-volley zone, universally called the kitchen, extends 7 feet from the net on both sides across the full court width. The rule is narrow and precise: you may not volley while touching the kitchen or its line.

You may stand in the kitchen whenever you like. You may play a ball that has bounced while standing in it. What you cannot do is hit the ball out of the air with any part of you in contact with that zone — including momentum that carries you in immediately after the shot, even if you struck the ball while outside. The full kitchen rules cover the edge cases.

Scoring

Traditional pickleball uses side-out scoring: only the serving side can score a point. Win a rally while receiving and you gain the serve, not a point.

In doubles the score is called as three numbers — your score, their score, then whether you are server one or two. The very first serve of a game is called 0-0-2, because the starting team only gets one server before handing over. The scoring page explains why, and covers rally scoring.

Faults

A fault ends the rally. If the serving side faults, they lose the serve. If the receiving side faults, the serving side scores.

• The ball lands out of bounds, or in the kitchen on a serve.
• The ball fails to clear the net.
• A player volleys while touching the non-volley zone or its line.
• The two-bounce rule is broken.
• The ball is hit before it has bounced, when it was required to bounce.
• A player, their clothing or their paddle touches the net or posts while the ball is live.
• The ball strikes a player anywhere other than their paddle hand below the wrist.

Singles and doubles

The court is the same size for both. What changes is the serving sequence, the positioning and — sharply — the fitness demand. Doubles is by far the more common format in Malaysia. See doubles versus singles for the differences that matter.

Ready to play?

Find a beginner-friendly court that runs open play, borrow a paddle, and go. The rules make far more sense after one game than after ten pages of reading.