Lesson 3: How Scoring Works

Pickleball uses side-out (traditional) scoring as its official standard. The most important rule to remember: only the serving side can score a point.

• If the serving side wins a rally → they score a point and keep serving.
• If the serving side loses a rally → no point is scored and serve passes to the other team (called a side out).

Calling the score in doubles:

The score is called as three numbers in this order:

1. Serving team's score

2. Receiving team's score

3. Server number (1 or 2)

Example: *"4-2-1"* means the serving team has 4 points, the receiving team has 2, and it is server number 1's turn.

Special start-of-game rule:

At the very beginning of each game, the first serving team starts as "0-0-2." This means they only get one server before a side out. After that, both players on a team get to serve before the serve changes sides.

Note: An alternative called rally scoring (a point every rally) exists as an approved format, but side-out scoring remains the official standard.