Guides · Rules
The serve in pickleball is deliberately weak. It exists to start the rally, not to win it, and the rulebook is built to keep it that way: underhand only, one attempt, and a ball that must travel past the kitchen. Because the serve is not a weapon, the rules around it are mostly about fairness of the start rather than power, which is why they read like a list of small mechanical conditions. Here they are, in the order they matter on court.
USA Pickleball allows two ways to put the ball in play. You can use either, on any point, without announcing which.
You toss or release the ball and hit it out of the air. This is the traditional serve, and it must satisfy three conditions at the moment of contact:
All three must hold together. A serve struck at hip height with the paddle head above the wrist is a fault even though it was “underhand.” Referees watch the wrist rule closest, because it is the one players drift on when they try to add pace.
You drop the ball, let it bounce, and hit it after the bounce. Introduced as a provisional rule in 2021 and made permanent, it comes with two conditions of its own and, importantly, none of the three above:
The catch is physics: a ball dropped from shoulder height bounces to about knee height, so you are hitting a low ball regardless. The drop serve is popular with beginners because there is no toss to mistime, and with some advanced players because it makes heavy topspin easier to generate legally.
At the moment you strike the ball:
Which box you serve from is decided by your score: even score from the right, odd from the left. That is covered in the scoring guide; the short version is that it is always your own team’s score that decides, never the opponents’.
The serve goes diagonally into the service court across the net, the box that is bounded by the baseline, the far sideline, the centerline, and the kitchen line.
| Ball lands on… | Result |
|---|---|
| Baseline | In |
| Sideline | In |
| Centerline | In |
| Kitchen (non-volley zone) line | Fault — the serve is short |
| Inside the kitchen | Fault |
| Wrong service box | Fault |
The kitchen line is the one that catches people. Everywhere else in pickleball, a ball on a line is in. On the serve, the kitchen line belongs to the kitchen, and a serve that clips it is out. It is the same logic as the kitchen rule for your feet: the line is part of the zone.
If the serve hits the top of the net and lands in the correct box, play on. There is no let and no replay; the rule was removed in 2021. The receiver has to deal with a ball that dribbled over, and the server has no complaint if it dribbled into the kitchen instead, because then it is simply a fault. Players who grew up on tennis will call “let” out of reflex for the first few months. Ignore them and hit the ball.
There is no second serve. Miss into the net, out, short, from the wrong box, or with an illegal motion and the point is over. In doubles the serve passes to your partner (if you were server 1) or to the other team (if you were server 2); in singles it is a side-out. The scoring guide has the mechanics. This is why the standard advice for a serve is “deep and in”: a serve in the back third of the box gets 90 percent of the value of a great serve, and a missed serve gets nothing.
Once the score has been called, the server has 10 seconds to serve. The receiver, in turn, is expected to be ready when the score is called; if they are not, they should raise a paddle or hand before the call, not after the serve is struck. The rule is there to stop servers stalling and receivers ambushing the server with “wait, not ready” after a good serve.
Related: the server (or the referee, in an officiated match) must call the full score before serving, and in doubles must call all three numbers. Serving before the score is called is a fault in tournament play.
For a couple of seasons players discovered they could impart heavy spin on the ball by flicking or rolling it with the fingers as they released it, then hitting the spinning ball. From 2023 that is illegal. You may not add spin to the ball with your hand or fingers on release. The ball has to be tossed or dropped cleanly. You are still allowed to put spin on the ball with the paddle, which is what the drop serve is often used for.
The related visibility rule: the release of the ball must be visible to the referee and the receiver. Hiding the toss behind your body is a fault in a refereed game.
The serve is the first of the two shots that must bounce. The receiver may not volley the serve; the serving team may not volley the return. Only from the third shot on can anyone hit the ball out of the air. This is the rule that stops the serving team from serving and charging the net, and it is the reason the third shot in pickleball is usually a soft drop rather than a drive. It is explained alongside the controls on the how to play page.
In the online pickleball game on this site the serve is underhand and diagonal by construction, so the motion rules are automatic. What you control is placement and depth: A and D aim across the box, and the Serve stat decides how deep the ball goes and how much the bounce sits up. A serve that lands in the kitchen or on its line is a fault, exactly as above. Net cords that land in the box are live. There is one attempt. The even-right, odd-left rule moves your player automatically, so if you ever find yourself on the “wrong” side, check the score: it is the game telling you the score is odd.
Keep going: pickleball scoring explained, including what happens to the serve after a fault, and the kitchen rule that governs the rest of the rally.
Or serve a few and see how deep the Serve stat can push the ball.