How pickleball scoring works

Pickleball scoring trips up almost everyone the first time, grown-ups included. A player calls out three numbers before every serve, and a team can win a long rally and score nothing. It all follows from one rule: in a standard doubles game, only the serving team scores.

Here is the whole system in plain terms. Pickle Kids plays by these rules, so a kid who plays it has watched the score work before their first lesson.

Only the serving team scores

When your team is serving and wins the rally, your team gets a point. When the other team is serving and your team wins the rally, nobody scores. The serve moves on instead, to their second server or over to your side.

A game usually goes to 11, and a team has to win by 2. Some tournaments play to 15 or 21.

The three numbers

Before each serve, the server calls the score out loud: their own team's score first, then the other team's, then a 1 or a 2 for which partner is serving. A call of 4-2-1 means the serving team has 4, the other team has 2, and the team's first server is up.

Two servers, then a side out

Each team gets two servers in a row. The first server keeps serving as long as their team keeps winning rallies. When their team loses one, the partner serves next, as server 2. When the second server's team loses a rally, it's a side out, and the serve goes to the other team.

After each point it wins, the serving team's two players trade sides, and the server serves again from the other side, always diagonally across the court. The receiving team stays where it is. After every side out, the new serving team starts with the player on the right side of the court.

Why every game starts at 0-0-2

Serving first is an advantage, so the team that serves first gets only one server on its first turn. That's why the first call of the game is 0-0-2: it counts as if that team's first server has already had a turn. If the serving team loses the first rally, it's a side out straight away.

Rules that end a lot of rallies

The serve goes diagonally and has to land past the kitchen. A serve that lands in the kitchen or on its line is a fault.

The serve has to bounce before the other team hits it, and the return has to bounce before the serving team hits it. After those two bounces, players can volley, which means hitting the ball out of the air. That's the two-bounce rule.

The kitchen is the zone that runs 7 feet back from the net on each side. A player can't volley while standing in it or on its line. A ball that has bounced can be played from inside it.

Some leagues play rally scoring

In rally scoring, every rally wins a point, whoever served, and the score is just two numbers. USA Pickleball's rules include it as an optional format, and some leagues and rec programs use it. Side-out scoring is still the standard, and it's what Pickle Kids plays. If your kid's program uses rally scoring, a game built for that program can score the same way.

How Pickle Kids shows it

Pickle Kids is doubles at the park with side-out scoring. A game goes to 7 unless you pick a game to 11 on the title card, and either way a team has to win by 2. Before every serve it shows who is serving and the score as the three numbers, so a kid sees 4-2-1 next to the server's name. When the serve changes hands it says so, with "Second server" or "Side out!"

It calls faults too: Out, Net, Fault, and Kitchen for a volley with your kid's feet in the kitchen. The pause screen explains the scoring in a few sentences, for a grown-up who wants to check a call.