Pickleball is fun, social and friendly! The rules are simple and the game is easy for beginners to learn, but can develop into a fast-paced, competitive game.

You can think of pickleball as tennis played on a badminton court, with an oversized ping pong paddle.

A standard pickleball court happens to be around the same size as a doubles badminton court and the court measures 44 feet long (inclusive of lines) and 20 feet wide (inclusive of lines). The net height of a pickleball court is 36 inches high at the sidelines and 34 inches high in the middle. Yes, this court happens to be very similar to a tennis court. The court is striped with right and left service courts and a 7-foot non-volley zone in front of the net, which is is often referred to as the kitchen.

In simpler language, the pickleball court is roughly the size of a badminton court or a sepak takraw court.

Rule #1 – You Can Play Pickleball Singles or Doubles

At any one time, a pickleball court should have no more than four people playing. That’s four if you’re playing doubles, where two teams each have two players. Otherwise, there will be two people on the court in a singles game. Singles pickleball is played one-on-one style.  

Rule #2 – Only the Serving Side Scores a Point 

In pickleball, there are servers–or the ones serving the ball–and receivers, who are the ones sending it back. You can score points only when serving, not receiving.

Using doubles pickleball as an example, one of the two people on the team will be the first server. That player begins on the right side of the court, which is the even side for an even-numbered score of 0 - 0 - 2.

In doubles only, there are three numbers called when serving. The serving team’s score is called first, the receiving team’s score is called second, and the final number indicates which server on the serving team’s side is first. 

Then they hit the ball to the diagonally opposite side of the court, where their opponent stands. They switch to the left side to serve if they score, then back to the right side if they score again, and so on.

It’s only when the server faults, or makes a rule infraction, that this serving sequence stops. Then the second player on the team serves. If they fault, the ball goes to the other team.

Rule #3 – The Ball Needs to Bounce Once Per Side

Pickleball has what’s known as a two-bounce rule. If they do this is what it means.

After the initial serve to start the game, the ball has to bounce once before the receiver can hit it. Then the server has to let the returning ball bounce once before they hit it. 

The two bounces have to occur on one side of the net apiece. If you let the ball bounce twice before hitting it, that could count as a fault!

Once those two bounces are up, now you can play off the bounce or begin volleying the ball. 

The two-bounce rule is only for when you start the game and doesn’t apply at any other point throughout the rest of the game. 

Rule #4 – Volley Serves Equal Underhand

The migration from tennis to pickleball is a common path for many players. While sharing many similarities, one of the biggest adjustments that tennis players have to make when joining pickleball is how they serve.

In pickleball, there are two types of legal serves; one is far more popular than the other and it can only be legal if done underhand. It's referred to as the volley serve and is the traditional style of serving in the sport.

Rule #5 – The Non-Volley Zone, NVZ (a.k.a. Kitchen)

The pickleball non-volley zone or kitchen rule is easily one of the most infamous rules in pickleball. And also one of the most hilarious. the kitchen rule states that you cannot be touching the kitchen zone or kitchen line while volleying a ball. If you want to hit the ball within the Kitchen, you need to wait for the ball to bounce first.

Rule #6 – The Game is Usually Played to 11 Points

Pickleball isn’t a time-based game where after an allotted time, the player with the higher score wins. Instead, the first side to reach 11 points with at least 2 points more than their opponent is the winner. 

The pickleball paddle is larger than a ping pong bat. It is short, and weighs about 230 grams.

The pickleball ball is hollow and made of plastic.