How does pickleball scoring work in doubles?

It all starts with the serve. Serving always starts with the player on the right side of the court. The serve must land in the service area diagonal from the server’s side. The serve is considered in if it hits the centerline, baseline or sideline. The serve is considered out if it hits the non volley line otherwise known as the kitchen line. The server continues to serve until they lose a point. Each time you win a point, you(serving team) switch sides and serve diagonally to the other service area. When the first server loses a point, their doubles partner has an opportunity to serve. Except for the very first serve of the match but we will get into that later. As long as they continue to win points, they switch sides as well. You can only win points if you are serving, no rally scoring in pickleball! When both partners have had an opportunity to serve and lost their points, the other team gets their chance to show what they have. At this point, it is a race to 11 points but you do have to win by 2.

Now let’s talk about the oddities of pickleball scoring. Like most racket/paddle sports, the ball can only bounce once. It doesn’t have to bounce but if it does, once is all you get unless you are the serving side.. like I said, oddities. The serving side must allow the returned ball to bounce before they can hit it. This odd rule is only in play right after the serve, IE: the 3rd shot. This is why you will see both players on the serving side staying back on the baseline until the ball is returned and bounces. After that, all bets are off and normal rules apply.

The biggest oddity and typically the most difficult one to remember is how to play in and around the kitchen. Kitchen? What? Sorry, the “Non-Volley Zone” otherwise known as the kitchen. You will hear about the kitchen much more than any other part of a pickleball court. It’s the 7 foot rectangular area on either side of the net. Essentially it is a safe zone to keep players from playing right on the net and destroying everything coming their way. It’s really pretty simple, but it’s also incredibly easy to play in and around the kitchen the wrong way. The best way to understand the kitchen is to go back to what it is actually called… the “Non-Volley Zone”. What that means is that you cannot be on the line or in the non-volley zone and hit the ball before it bounces. It’s really that simple. Another oddity is that you can’t even fall into the non-volley zone if you hit the ball in the air before it bounces even if the point is over. So the other way to think about it is that if the ball bounces anywhere on the court, you can be in the non-volley zone without worry. You can also step in the non-volley zone anytime during a point as long as you don’t hit the ball before it bounces. The non-volley zone/kitchen is probably the most misunderstood rule in pickleball and I promise you will run into players who challenge your understanding but rest assured, play bye the rules in this article and you can be confident you are playing the correct way.

So now let’s get back to scoring for a minute. Remember when I mentioned the very first serve? Normally each player on each team gets to serve at least once except for the first serve of the match. This will make more sense as we discuss how to call out the scoring. No other game that I know of calls out a score quite the same way. It isn’t difficult but it is different. The score is verbally called out by the server in the following format.

Zero Zero One or Five Seven Two… Confusing huh? Not when you understand the cadence. Let’s look at the first example, Zero Zero One. The first Zero is your (the server’s) score. The second Zero is the receiver’s score. And One means it is the first server on that team. Let’s look at the second example, Five Seven Two. Five is the server’s score. Seven is the receiver’s score. And Two means it is the second server’s turn to serve. So a winning score would be something like 11-8-1. Now for the oddity… Let’s round back to that odd very first serve. The very first serve of the match the serving team only gets one opportunity to serve. So typically the score is called out Zero Zero Start or sometimes you hear Zero Zero Two. Either way, the team that gets the very first serve of the match only gets one opportunity to serve until they lose a point. After that, each player on both teams gets to serve each time it is their turn.