How a pickleball game works

1. Pickleball is played with solid paddles and a plastic ball on a small court, in singles or doubles. Each rally starts with an underarm serve.
2. The ball must bounce once on each side before anyone hits it in the air: the two-bounce rule.
3. Nobody may volley from the 7 ft non-volley zone beside the net, often called the kitchen.
4. Only the serving side scores, by winning the rally. In doubles both partners serve before the serve passes to the other side.

Reading the score

In doubles the score is called as three numbers: the serving side's score, the receiving side's score, then whether the first or second server is serving.

How long

Tournament matches are one game to 15 or 21, or best of three or five games to 11.