Everything You Need To Know About Pickleball Rules

Do you love playing racquet sports? If so, you’ll love pickleball! Pickleball is a unique sport that borrows rules from different racquet sports and creates new ones to make the game challenging, yet fun. The sport is played with two or four players using paddles, a plastic ball and a net. The basic premise of the game is to hit a ball over a net and make your opponent miss. There are many different shots that can be used in pickleball, making the game interesting for both beginners and experts alike. In this blog post, we will discuss the different rules of pickleball and how you can start playing today!

Rules Unique to Pickleball

A few pickleball rules will be familiar since many of them are borrowed from other racquet sports. The rules unique to pickleball is what makes it a different and interesting game to play.

The Kitchen

The Non-Volley Zone, often referred to as “the kitchen” is the biggest differentiator from other racquet sports. As the name implies, the non-volley zone is a 7 ft area on each side of the net where players can’t hit the ball out of the air. It starts at the net and ends at the service boxes, taking up the middle of the court. Players typically stand behind this line so that they ARE allowed to volley the ball out of the air.

The reason for the kitchen is that it prevents players from running to the net and hitting a hard shot out of the air. It also prevents serving and volleying. A stronger team could dominate the competition if this were allowed. The kitchen allows both teams to hit a defensive shot where the other team will have a hard time hitting a put away.

Players are allowed to stand in the kitchen and hit the ball, but they must let it bounce first. This is why most players stand behind the kitchen until the other team hits a short ball that lands inside of the kitchen. Reaching your paddle into the Non-Volley Zone to hit the ball out of the air before it bounces is allowed, so long as no other part of your body,paddle, or piece of clothing is touching the surface of the kitchen.

Another quirk of the kitchen is that you aren’t allowed to hit a ball out of the air while behind the kitchen and then land or have your momentum bring you into the kitchen. You must come to a controlled and complete stop or make a change of direction before moving into the kitchen. More advanced players will work around this by jumping from behind the kitchen, hitting the ball out of the air, and finally landing outside of the sideline.

Serving Rules

Serving in pickleball is the opposite as in tennis. In pickleball, players must serve underhand and make contact below their waist. In tennis most serves are hit overhead, although some players will occasionally serve underhand to try and get a free point. New serving rules have also been added in recent years as more advanced players have developed certain tossing techniques that have given them too much of an advantage.

Players must also stand behind the playing surface and not to the right or left side of either sideline. When serving, the highest point of the paddle may not be higher than the wrist during contact. This is to prevent players from serving with too much topspin. The swing arc must also be in an upward movement from low to high.

When serving, the ball must also be hit accross the court and not land in the Non-Volley Zone. It is important to note that the Non-Volley Zone line is a part of the Non-Volley Zone, and any serve that hits this line is considered “out”. This is somewhat similar to tennis since the ball is serve across the court and must land in a dedicated “service box”, with the exception that all lines are considered “in”. The ball is allowed to land on the sideline, middle line, or baseline so long as it still lands beyond the kitchen line.

Another interesting pickleball serving rule is that both the serve and the return must bounce. In other words, the serving team must let the first shot hit back to them bounce. This rule prevents serving and volleying and allows the points to last longer. This rule is often referred to as the 2-bounce rule, not to be confused with the ball bouncing twice and one side and thus ending the point.

New Serving Rules

As mentioned earlier, some advanced players were spinning the ball while tossing in order to generate additional spin when they served. It was determined that this was too much of an advantage and rule changes were submitted in order to prevent this from happening. Starting in 2023, players must only use one hand to toss the ball and it cannot be visibly spun while tossing.

A drop serve has also been fully added to the rules in 2023. While the drop serve isn’t typically utilized, it did have provisional status that will finally be removed. For some players, tossing the ball and hitting it out of the air can be a bit of a challenge. With the drop serve, a player can hold the ball around shoulder height and let it drop and bounce on the ground prior to completing the serve.

Keeping Score While Serving

The first thing to know about keeping score in pickleball is that only the serving team can score points. This is different from tennis where the player who isn’t serving can win points, games, sets, or even the match.

The serving team must serve diagonally to the player across from them and then let the returning shot bounce on their side before hitting the next shot. If the serving team wins the point, the server then switches sides with their teammate and serves to diagonally to the other side. If the serving team would have lost the point, their teammate would then serve from the same side they were standing on without switching. This continues until both teammates have lost a point while serving.

After both players on the serving team have lost their serve, it is then the returning team’s turn to serve. The serve starts on the even side (right side when facing the net) for the player who was returning on that side prior to their turn to serve.

Here is a quick example of how to keep score while serving.

The score is 0-0-1 and player 1 serves from the even side and hits an ace. The serving team then switches sides with eachother and would serve next player on the returning team. Before serving the server would call out the score as 1-0-1. Now lets pretend the server misses the serve altogether. The serving team would not switch sides, and player 2 on the serving team would then serve. They would call out a score of 1-0-2 and then serve diagonally to the player across from them.

Now let’s assume the serving team misses the serve again and it is the returning teams turn to serve. The player currently on the even side who was returning from there during the other teams turn to serve would call out a score of 0-1-1 and then serve. This process repeats until one team reaches 11 points, win by 2.

Line Call Rules

Players on the pickleball court are responsible for making line calls and determining if the ball was in or out. The player standing on the even side while serving or returning is responsible for calling the lines on their side, and the same for the player standing on the odd side. If the players switch sides during the point, the person closest to the ball when it lands is responsible for making the line call.

Line calls can be a touchy subject on the court, especially if you’re playing in a tournament or with very competitive players. It’s important to make sure that you don’t call a ball out if you’re not 100% sure it landed out. Just like you might be watching a group of people playing and get surprised when one of them makes a bad call, chances are you’ve made a bad call once or twice. Prompt line calls are also something to be considered. Waiting too long to make a call in or out casts doubt in your call and should called in. If you ask the opponent their opinion on a line call that your team should have made, you give up your right to call the ball in or out.

Faults

Faults in pickleball result in a dead ball that ends the point. These can happen for a number of different reasons and must be called out by players on the court as soon as they happen.

Faults on the Serve

If the serving team does not let the return bounce prior to hitting, the returning team wins the point.

If the serve hits an opponent whether on their body or any piece of their clothing, this is a fault and results in the serving team winning the point. This is also the case if the opponent is hit by the ball before it bounces, even if it was going to land out.

Stepping over the baseline while serving would cause a dead ball and result in the serving team losing the point.

Illegal serves or serves that break the rules would result in the serving team losing the point. This is more difficult to judge in a recreation game and a referee would typically make this call during a tournament. If a player believes their opponent is using an illegal serve, they should let the referee know so that they can make it a point to keep an eye on the serve and properly review it.

Non-Volley Zone Faults

The majority of faults will happen around the Non-Volley Zone. Since players typically have their eye on the ball, they may not be aware of where they are standing when they make contact with the ball. If a player notices their opponent stepped into the kitchen while hitting a volley, it is their responsibility to call a fault. In recreational games, it is easier to be more lenient with this rule, but for competitive matches or tournaments its important that this rule is taken seriously.

Faults can also be called if any part of the player, including their paddle or clothing, touches the Non-Volley Zone. This can be during the swing, during the follow-through, or momentum from hitting the ball. Players also cannot stand in the kitchen, jump to hit a volley, and then finally land outside of the volley zone.

Players may also not reach over the net before hitting the ball or touch the net while the ball is still in play. There is one exception to being able to cross over the net. If an opponent hits the ball with enough backspin to bring the ball back onto their side of the court after landing, a player can reach over the net and hit the ball. When this happens, the player is still not allowed to touch the net or the opponents side of the court while the ball is still in play.

Other Pickleball Rules to Remember

Not that there aren’t already so many rules to keep in mind while player, there are also so one-off rules that are important to remember.

Double hits can and do happen during pickleball. These are defined as the ball being hit twice during a swing by one player and must be unintentional and continuous. If this happens during the point, nothing needs to be said or called out and the point simply continues.

Its also important to remember that missed shots are allowed. If one player swings and does not make any contact with the ball, that ball is still in play and can be hit before it bounces twice. This happens more in doubles than it does in singles.

A pickleball can also break during the point. If this happens, play continues until the point is over. Players must then address the broken ball before the next serve in order to bring a new ball into play. If this happens during a tournament, players must appeal to the referee to confirm whether or not the ball is cracked or broken.

Pickleball paddes aren’t allowed to be modified. The only modifications that are allowed are adding or changing the grip and using lead tape. Putting lead tape on your pickleball paddle is a legal and popular way to change your paddles performance.

Conclusion

Pickleball rules can take time to get used to. Since they are a combination of rules from different racquet sports, it can be easy to forget which ones apply. The majority of the difficult rules to remember are the ones relating to the Non-Volley Zone and the types of shots you’re not allowed to hit. After playing pickleball a few times, the rules start to make sense, are easy to remember, and make the game exciting and enjoyable!