Basics Guide

1965 on Bainbridge Island, Washington. Three dads - Joel Pritchard, Bill Bell, and Barney McCallum - were trying to entertain their bored kids and basically improvised a game with ping pong paddles, a wiffle ball, and a badminton court.

The story goes they lowered the net, made up some rules on the spot, and it just took off from there. The name "pickleball" supposedly came from the Pritchard family dog, Pickles, though there's some debate about that.

What's wild is how recent it is - we're talking less than 60 years old. Most sports have centuries of history. Pickleball went from backyard game to one of the fastest-growing sports in America in basically one generation.

44 feet long by 20 feet wide for both singles and doubles. That's about a third the size of a tennis court, which is why you can fit multiple pickleball courts on one tennis court.

The kitchen (non-volley zone) extends 7 feet from the net on both sides. The net's 36 inches high at the sidelines and 34 inches in the middle - slightly lower than tennis.

Service boxes are on each side, similar layout to tennis but smaller. The court's compact enough that you don't need to be super athletic to cover it, but big enough that positioning and strategy still matter.

Games go to 11 points, win by 2. You can only score when your team is serving - that's the big rule that confuses people at first.

When you're serving, you call out three numbers: your score, opponent's score, then which server you are (1 or 2 in doubles). So "5-3-2" means you have 5, they have 3, and you're the second server.

If you lose the rally while serving, the serve either goes to your partner (if you're server 1) or to the other team (if you're server 2). It sounds complicated written out, but makes sense after a few games.

Court coverage is the obvious one. In singles, you're covering the whole court yourself, so fitness and movement matter way more. Doubles is more about positioning and teamwork.

Strategy changes too. Singles is more baseline rallies and trying to move your opponent around. Doubles is about getting to the kitchen line together and working as a unit.

Serving rules differ slightly - in singles, you serve from the right when your score is even, left when it's odd. In doubles, you've got the two-server system. Most people play doubles because it's more social and less exhausting, but singles is its own challenge.

It runs from 1.0 to 5.0+, measuring skill level. Beginners start around 2.0-2.5. Recreational players who've been playing a while are usually 3.0-3.5. Competitive players are 4.0+, and 5.0+ is basically pro or near-pro level.

Ratings can be self-assessed or official through tournaments and sanctioned play. Self-ratings are common for casual play, but tournament players get official ratings based on their performance.

The system helps match people at similar skill levels for fair games. Playing up a level or two is how you improve, but jumping from 3.0 to 5.0 play isn't fun for anyone involved. Most facilities organize open play by rating ranges.

The ball has to bounce once on each side before anyone can hit a volley. So serve bounces, return of serve bounces, then after that you can volley.

It prevents the serving team from charging the net immediately and smashing the return. Levels the playing field and makes rallies more strategic than just power-based.

Once those two bounces happen, you can volley all you want - as long as you're not standing in the kitchen. That rule combined with the kitchen rule is what makes pickleball different from tennis or badminton. It forces patience and strategy.