Pickleball Clubplay

For the membership year from 1st May 2025 the Committee have decided that Pickleball will only be available to new members who join under a full Rackets membership.  This is whilst we await the Planning Appeal decision for the club’s application to install 2 Padel courts on the court that Pickleball is currently played on.  The position of Pickleball at Lansdown will be reviewed should that application not succeed.

Sunday afternoon Pickleball sessions will continue to be available to renewing members who previously participated in these sessions but do not hold a Rackets membership, as well as all Rackets members.   Please join the Pickleball WhatsApp group via the invite link in Useful Links on our members App/website to keep updated with play arrangements.

Guests can attend under the club’s usual guest arrangements or free of charge if spare court capacity – where there are more attendees than court space available, club members and paying guests will be prioritised for play.  A member can choose to sit out instead of a free guest.

3 full-size Pickleball courts have been marked out on Centre Court

This is the hard court nearest the clubhouse, with 2 white & 1 black Pickleball nets stored on the side-lines.  The white nets have lockable wheels – please use the foot pedals at either end and in the middle (6 in total) to unlock all wheels (pedal set to “off”) before moving then locking (“on”) at least 1 wheel in each pair when storing nets against the middle of the fence by the hedge.  You are recommended to lock all 6 wheels once in position for play.

The full recommended playing space is 34 x 64 feet (10.4 x 19.5m) – this allows room off-court to run into when playing the ball.  Line markings should be 2 inches wide (as for tennis).

Take one bag per court from the Pickleball locker (on the patio by Centre Court – key available from the Bar) which contains club paddles & balls plus additional court markers if needed.

If a 4th court is required a mini-tennis net can be obtained from the Office and set up in the remaining quadrant (a net height of 31 inches typically – raise net as much as possible towards 34 inches high in the middle).  The kitchen line has been measured and marked on the mini-tennis court there and the red court lines can be used as approximate court boundaries (a smaller 11m x 5.5m size than the 13.4m x 6.1m used for Pickleball).

Session format

Club sessions are based around rally scoring doubles games to 21, with rotation of players around courts approximately every 15 minutes.  Complex rotations can be managed with the very helpful Pickle-Mixer application.  If there are more players than courts available, games may be shortened to 11 points to allow a quicker rotation into play.  Other playing formations, also with rally scoring, will be used when there are uneven numbers, as described below.

See Rules & Scoring for more information on scoring & court positioning.

2 player courts – Singles

• – Players serve from the right-hand side of the court if their score is even and from the left-hand side of the court if their score is odd, alternating sides until a point is lost and serve passes over to the opposing player.
• – If the full court is too much for either player to cover, try Skinny Singles – serve diagonally as for normal singles but then only play in that diagonal for the rest of the point.
• –  As per the 3 and 5 player options below, it may be preferable to play 2 x 11 point games instead of a 21 point game (in this case, giving the chance for each player to win one game).

3 player courts – Singles vs Doubles

• – Decide who will play singles or, rather than one 21 point game with the same person playing singles, play 2 x 11 point games with 2 different people playing singles and one person always playing doubles.  Court size is the same for singles and doubles, so the singles player will need to cover more ground.
• – The serve changes between teams each time the serve is lost, with the singles player alternating serving from right (even score) and left (odd score) sides of the court and the doubles team players each keeping to one side of the court (the right hand player serving if their score is even and left hand player if their score is odd).

5 player rotation

• – Start with 4 people on court with the right-hand side player on one team starting serving.
• – If the serving team win the point, the same server moves to the left hand side of the court to serve the next point.  That player keeps the serve, alternating left and right sides of the court for service, until their team loses a point.  The server then swaps out with the waiting player.
• – The right hand side player on the opposing team serves next, again alternating serving sides until their team loses a point, when they swap out for the player who is currently waiting (the player who served first).
• – The player swapping in should always go to the left hand side of the court, with the previous server’s partner going on the right hand side – this right hand player will then serve after the opposition lose their serve, meaning everyone will sit out in fair rotation.
• – Finish when one team reaches the agreed winning score – it may be unclear who exactly won though, everyone being likely to have played on the winning side at one point during the game!
• – Playing 2 x 11 point games rather than one 21 point game is recommended as each player will partner only 2 of the other players in each rotation.   Playing over 2 games you can change the swap-out order from ABCDE to ACEBD to ensure everyone partners everyone else over the 2 games, i.e. with A sitting out first each time, and bold letter indicating the 1st server, starting positions on court:

Game 1:  (serving order B, C, D, E, A)
BD
EC

Game 2:  (serving order C, E, B, D, A)
CB
DE