How to Play Pickleball

Pickleball is genuinely easy to start and hard to master, which is a big part of why it is the fastest-growing sport in the country. You can learn enough to play a real game in about five minutes. This guide walks through the whole flow of a point, in order, so you can step on court and keep score correctly the first time.

The object of the game

Pickleball is played on a court the size of a doubles badminton court — 20 feet wide by 44 feet long — with a net 36 inches high at the sidelines. You hit a hollow plastic ball back and forth over the net with a solid paddle. A point ends when a team fails to return the ball legally: it goes into the net, lands out of bounds, or bounces twice before they hit it. Games are usually played to 11 points, win by 2. Most pickleball is played as doubles, two against two, which is how this guide describes it. If you are brand new to the whole idea, start with what is pickleball.

The serve

Every point starts with a serve. The serve is hit underhand— the paddle must be moving upward and contact the ball below your waist — from behind the baseline, and it must travel diagonally into the opposite service box, clearing the non-volley zone. You get one serve attempt (there are no second serves as in tennis). A modern alternative, the drop serve, lets you drop the ball and hit it after the bounce, which many beginners find easier. The exact serving rules are covered in depth in pickleball serving rules.

The two-bounce rule

This is the rule that makes pickleball pickleball, and the one beginners forget most. After the serve, the ball must bounce once on each side before anyone can hit it out of the air. So the receiving team must let the serve bounce, and then the serving team must let the return bounce. Only after those two bounces can a player volley (hit the ball before it bounces). This rule stops the serving team from rushing the net and smashing the return, and it gives every rally a chance to develop.

The kitchen (non-volley zone)

The 7-foot zone on each side of the net is the non-volley zone, universally called the “kitchen.” You cannot hit a volley (a ball out of the air) while standing in it or touching its line. You canstep in to play a ball that has already bounced — you just have to be out of the kitchen before you volley again. The kitchen is the tactical heart of the game; we cover it fully in pickleball kitchen rules.

How a point flows

Put it together and a typical point looks like this: the server serves deep and cross-court; the returner lets it bounce and hits a deep return; the serving team lets that return bounce (the two-bounce rule), usually hitting a soft third shot drop into the kitchen; then both teams move up to the kitchen line and trade soft dinksuntil someone pops a ball up too high and the other team attacks it. Learning that rhythm — get the ball down, get to the line, be patient — is the whole beginner game, and it is laid out in strategy for beginners.

Keeping score

Only the serving team can score a point. In doubles the score is called as three numbers before each serve — your team's score, the other team's score, and whether you are the first or second server (1 or 2). When the serving team loses a rally, the serve passes; after both partners have served and lost, it is a “side out” and the other team serves. Games go to 11, win by 2. It sounds fiddly written down and becomes automatic after a game or two — the full walkthrough is in how pickleball scoring works.

What you need to start

Very little: a paddle, a ball and court shoes. A cheap starter set gets two people playing in one order, and proper court shoesprotect your ankles on the sideways movement the sport demands. That is it — the rest you learn by playing.

The most common beginner mistakes

New players trip over the same handful of things. The biggest is forgetting the two-bounce rule and volleying the return out of the air, which is an automatic fault. Close behind is standing too far back: beginners linger at the baseline when the game is won at the kitchen line, so make getting up to the line your default once the two bounces are done. Others include swinging too hard (the light ball does not need a full backswing), stepping into the kitchen to volley, and serving overhand out of tennis habit. None of these are hard to fix once you know to watch for them — the habits that replace them are laid out in strategy for beginners.

How a typical game feels

A recreational game to 11 usually takes ten to twenty minutes, and most social sessions run several games with players rotating on and off the court. Because only the serving team scores, a game can swing on a single good serving run, and the win-by-two rule means a tight game can stretch well past 11. Pickleball is deliberately easy to pick up and endlessly deep to master: you will play a decent game your first day and still be sharpening the soft game months later. When you want to drill specific shots, work through our beginner drills, and read the court etiquette that keeps open play friendly.