Pickleball Score Tracker & Scoring Guide

Pickleball has become the fastest-growing sport in the United States, with millions of players of all ages. Understanding the scoring system is essential — it is more complex than most sports.

Two scoring systems are used:

1. Traditional Side-Out Scoring (most common):

• Only the serving team can score points.
• If the receiving team wins a rally, they gain the serve (side-out) but no point.
• Games are played to 11 points, win by 2.
• Tournament games may go to 15 or 21.

2. Rally Scoring (increasingly popular):

• Either team scores a point on every rally, regardless of who served.
• Games are played to 21 points, win by 2.
• Rally scoring makes games faster and more predictable in length.

The 3-number score call in doubles (side-out scoring): In doubles, the score is called as three numbers: Server Score – Receiver Score – Server Number

• The server number (1 or 2) tells players which server is currently serving.
• Example: “6-4-2” means the serving team has 6, the receiving team has 4, and it is the second server’s turn.
• At the start of a game, the first team serves as “second server” (score: 0-0-2) to limit their advantage.

In singles: Only two numbers are called: Server Score – Receiver Score There is no server number in singles.

Side switching: In a game to 11, players switch sides when the leading team reaches 6 points. In rally scoring to 21, sides switch at 11 points.

Winning: A team wins when they reach the target score (11 or 21) AND lead by at least 2 points. If tied at 10-10 (or 20-20), play continues until one team leads by 2.