What Is Skinny Singles Pickleball? And What Rules? (2023)

As we train and drill on fields of pickle court, we all try to find drills that accurately mimic the various strokes that can be performed in the “right” game – dinks, punches, drops, passing and volleys are Part of the mental pressure of the session.

Skinny singles are the perfect exercise to try out all of these boxes.

What are Skinny Singles?

Skinny singles is a pickle practice/game played in the half of pitch/court with other people.

How do you play skinny singles?

Skinny singles are played and marked as “regular” singles with one exception. In a lean single player,

you can only send the ball across the court to the opponent’s court – the side served by the ball.

If the ball does not hit the right side of the court (the right side depends on the outcome of the game), then there is a foul.

Here is an example.

Assuming that first server starts servicing on both sides at 0-0. The service is fought over the square to the opponent’s right.

Here the skinny single game becomes unique. All subsequent tricks (back edges, falls, ball throws, etc.) in a skinny single game must hit the “cross field” – from odd to even if the server is an even number and odd to odd when served. The score is an odd number.

What Is Pickleball Kitchen

Why do skinny singles mimic double strikes and strategy?

Because the width of the court is divided, each player only covers about 10 feet, the strokes and techniques of skinny singles are very similar to doubles.

The impact efficiency of bad shots is significantly reduced. On the contrary, it is often written off. Dinks are common. Skinny singles games are really like doubles games.

What about the Around-the-Post (ATP) shots?

One of the most common changes in skinny single cross-court play is to allow ATP strokes – even if the ATP does not cross the course on the right side of the opponent’s court.

Applying this rule change reinforces the idea that hitting sharp crossbeams may not be the desired option and may result in a simple, ending ATP for the other player playing with you.

Across from Each Other (Down-the-Line) Skinny Singles

The traditional way to play a skinny single is to serve crosswise and play across the court to the cross-court where serves can be hit.

However, in order to practice hitting and throwing balls, the game is often changed so that each player is placed on his side of the court according to his own score.

This means that if, for example, the score is 2-2, both the server and the edge return to their straight side and more than one pair of bowls are played on the straight side.

However, if the score is 3-2, the server is placed on the odd side and the server returns to the even side.

As a result, the rally was played directly against each other (not across the track).

If serving directly seems strange – and you can’t do it – please serve across the square and let the server slip right away.