Rally Scoring 

Rewritten for 2025 USAPA Provisional Rule

See  https://usapickleball.org/docs/2025-USA-Pickleball-Rulebook-Change-Document.pdf, page 13 for the provisional rules for Rally Scoring.

Why

• Rally Scoring is beneficial for speeding up games and is often used at tournaments.

• There are various rules used in different places.  Here is what USAPA has decided on.

Basics

• Every rally win awards a point, except on a side-out when the winning team is at game point.

• In other words, you must be serving to win the game.

• Games may be to 11, 15, or 21 and can be win by 1 or by 2.  

• If speeding up the games is the objective, win by 1 makes more sense.

Serving

• Serving is not much different than "regular doubles", but enough to be confusing.  Below green is SAME, red is DIFFERENT.

• The first serve of the game or after a rally win is always from the right.

• On winning a rally players switch sides and the same player serves from their new side.

• That player will continue serving until the team loses the rally. The second team mate does not get to serve until they win the next rally.

• On a  side out, if the the winning team is NOT at game point, they get a point and PLAYERS SWITCH SIDES.  First serve is from the right.

• It may help to remember where you started the game.  If you started on the right, you are the EVEN player.  If you started on the left, you are ODD. On a side out, the EVEN player makes the first serve from the right if the score is EVEN.  If the score is ODD, the ODD player makes the first serve from the right. That is the same for regular doubles but of course you don't get a  point or switch sides on a side out.

Scoring

• The team wining the rally gets a point, except if they are at game-point and did not serve.

• Prior to serving, two numbers are called, the serving team's score and opponent's score.  The third number is not called because there is only one server per possession. 

• Win-by-1 is  a better choice for a faster game.