The Court, in Brief

A pickleball court is 20 feet wide by 44 feet long — the same footprint as a doubles badminton court — and can be used for both singles and doubles. The net sits at 36 inches at the sidelines and dips slightly to 34 inches at the center. Down the middle of each side, a line divides the court into left and right service courts, which matters once you start serving.

How to Serve

The serve in pickleball is underhand. The paddle must contact the ball below waist level, and at the moment of contact the paddle head can't be above your wrist — the rule is designed to keep serves low and predictable rather than a power weapon like in tennis.

Serves are hit diagonally, cross-court, into the opponent's service box — just like a tennis serve. You get one attempt per serve (no second serve). If the ball clips the net on the way over and still lands in the correct service box, it's simply played as a live ball and the point continues — there's no "let" replay.

Before every serve, the server calls out the score — traditionally as three numbers in doubles: the serving team's score, the receiving team's score, and which server on the team is serving (1 or 2). It sounds confusing at first; it becomes automatic within a few games.

The Two-Bounce Rule (Double Bounce Rule)

This is the rule that most separates pickleball from tennis or badminton, and it's the one nearly every beginner forgets in their first rally. After the serve:

• The receiving team must let the serve bounce once before returning it — no volleying a serve out of the air.
• The serving team must then also let that return bounce once before hitting it back.

Only after both of those bounces have happened can either side start volleying the ball out of the air. This rule exists to prevent the serving team from serve-and-volleying straight to the net, and it's what gives pickleball its distinctive rhythm of a slower start to each point followed by fast net exchanges.

The Kitchen (Non-Volley Zone)

The "kitchen" is the 7-foot zone on each side of the net where volleying — hitting the ball out of the air without letting it bounce — isn't allowed. You can stand in the kitchen and hit a ball that has already bounced, but you can't step into it (or let your momentum carry you into it, including your paddle touching the ground inside the line) while volleying, even if the volley itself happens while you're still outside the zone.

This rule is what creates pickleball's signature "dinking" battles — the soft, arcing shots players trade near the net, each trying to draw a mistake without being able to smash the ball out of the air from point-blank range.

Scoring

Traditional pickleball uses side-out scoring: only the serving side can score a point. Games are typically played to 11 points, win by 2. If a rally ends in the receiving team's favor, no point is scored — instead, the serve passes to the other team (or, in doubles, to the second server on the same team before it passes across).

In doubles, there's one quirk worth remembering: at the very start of a game, the first serving team only gets one server before losing the serve, rather than the usual two. That's why you'll often hear the score called as "0-0-2" to start a game — it's a shorthand reminder of that one-time exception.

Common Faults to Avoid

A fault ends the rally immediately and hands the point (or the serve) to the other side. The most common ones for new players:

• Hitting the ball out of bounds or into the net
• Volleying while standing inside the kitchen, or stepping into it right after a volley
• Letting the ball bounce twice on your side before returning it
• Volleying the serve or the very first return before the two required bounces have happened
• A serve that lands outside the correct service box or is served out of turn

None of these are complicated once you've played a few games — they just take a bit of muscle memory to internalize, especially the two-bounce rule and the kitchen line.