Pickleball rules

Pickleball / Popular

Scoring, serving rules, faults and how a game is actually played.

What coaches agree on

  • After the serve, the ball must bounce once on each side of the net before either team can hit it out of the air — only once both bounces have happened can anyone volley.
  • You can't hit the ball out of the air while any part of you, your paddle, or your momentum is touching the non-volley zone (the kitchen) or its line, even if that only happens right after you make contact.
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  • The serve is hit from behind the baseline and must land diagonally beyond the non-volley zone line — landing on that line, or short of it, is a fault.
  • Only the serving team can score a point; if the returning team wins the rally, they just earn the serve, called a side out, not a point.

Common mistakes

  • Serving with contact above the waist or the paddle above the wrist is the single most commonly broken serving rule, and it hands the server an illegal power and angle advantage.
  • Waiting for the ball to bounce before stepping into the kitchen — you're actually free to move in any time, you just can't hit the ball out of the air until it bounces.
  • Believing both feet must stay behind the baseline for the whole serve motion — only one foot has to be behind it at the moment of contact, so stepping into the court right after is legal.
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Intermediate

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Coach's take: Goes further than any other rules video here — explains the committee's actual reasoning, not just the outcome.

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Coach's take: Actually explains what changed and why it matters, not just that it changed.

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