Pickleball Beginners Guide: the Basic Rules

These are some basic rules to get you started. They are not meant to be a complete definition of all the rules of Pickleball.

1) Parts of the Court

See the diagrm below. The key areas are

  • the Non Volley Zone (NVZ)

  • the serving area / court

2) Serving

  • serve to the diagonal serving court, the ball must bounce once and only once in the service court before it is hit and returned by the designated reserver

  • a volley serve is a serve that the serving player toss or drop the ball and hit it before the serve hits the ground on the serving side

  • a bounced serve is. server that the serving player drop, not throw, the ball and let it bounce on the ground before hitting the ball on the serving side

  • the volley serve has further restriction, the main one is the serve must hit the ball in an underhand motion and make contact below the server’ waist

3) Return of Servce

  • Receiver must wait for the ball to bounce once and only once before hitting the ball

  • The serving team, after serving the ball, (either player) must wait for the returned ball to bounce once and only once (anywhere on the court) before hitting the ball

4) Non Volley Zone

  • The Non Volley Zone, nicknamed “the kitchen”, is the rectangular area in front of the net on both sides.

  • If a player is standing in (in contact with) the NVZ, the player cannot hit any ball out of the air, i.e. before it bounces, i.e. hit a volley

What is My Pickleball Rating

What is my Rating?

That is a common question every Pickleball Player ask themselves because they need to know to be able to join the right group to play, or to start entering tournaments. This question is even harder for newer players.

USA Pickleball Rating System

The definitive guide to rating is the Rating Sheets published by the USA Pickleball organization.

https://usapickleball.org/tournaments/tournament-player-ratings/player-skill-rating-definitions/

I find the Skill Assessment sheets on USA Pickleball website very useful for someone to self rate themselves — make sure you look at the PDF versions that are downloadable.

Direct links:

How to Use the Skill Assessment Sheet

To “qualify” for the rating on those sheets, you should score at least a 2 (good basic form, but needs work), and all the YES’es on the serve, return, volley requirements. When you are scoring all 3 (solid consistent performance) then you are ready to get into the next level.

Lexington Pickleball Club Rating Guide

Working with a few fellow coaches and volunteers, we developed a simplified guide to help player to self rate themselves so that as a community club we can have organized leveled and fun open play. See this page for details.