By now you may know that pickleball is an incredibly fun sport for people from many ages and walks of life. You may know that it is similar to tennis in the aspects that there is a net in the middle of the court and can be played as a singles game with one person on each side of the net or as a doubles game with a team of two on each side of the net. But can you play pickleball with 3 players?
What if there are three friends hanging out together and they want to have a pickleball game? If everyone plays you can have a normal game of two or four players.
Is there a way to play pickleball with an odd number of 3 players? It would seem a bit weird to play three-player pickleball, wouldn’t it? Three players is an odd number to deal with on a court rather than the standard two players or four players.
Maybe we should just wait until we find other players – at least one more so we can play doubles. Or just wait until tomorrow.
Nah! Why do that when there are some pickleball game options for three players?
We just need to have a three-player variation. So, let’s look at some of those and have some fun playing pickleball rather than just thinking about it! Here are some ways that you can play three-player pickleball.
Just remember, you can be flexible with these strategies, and tailor the rules to what might be best as you include the third player. As long are you keep the basic premise and primary rules of a regular game of pickleball, what will a couple of changes hurt if you want to have a good time when you have one too few OR one too many players?
Let’s look at some ways to play pickleball with three players. Remember, these games can be modified as you like because pickleball with 3 players is only done for fun or if you are looking for some good pickleball drills to hone your skills in the game. These games are played on a standard pickleball court and are suitable for beginners, advanced players,
How To Play Pickleball with 3 Players: Strategy One – Simple Rotation
This is perhaps the easiest way to get three people playing in a game of pickleball. Decide which two players will begin. Then allow those two players to play each other for a predetermined amount of time – perhaps five or ten minutes. Then one player will rotate out and the player that has been waiting, keeping time and score will rotate in.
The winner is determined by who wins the most amount of games within a 3-game set.
Here is an example of how this three-player pickleball strategy would work:
Player #1 plays player #2
Player #2 plays player #3
Player #3 plays player #1
If each player wins one game each resulting in a tie, you can continue to play three-game sets until one player has surpassed the other two players in the game and wins by at least one game. If the effort to obtain a winner takes longer than expected, feel free to change the second set to games where 7 or even 5 points are the winning points if you need to finish more quickly.
Remember, in this situation playing pickleball, you aren’t in official or tournament play. You are playing pickleball for fun and exercise. Therefore you can adjust or adapt a three-player variation in any way that you like in which the other players agree. So, that is one possibility of pickleball with three players.
Also, with this method of playing, you could also use this format if you had six players – using the format for three teams rather than three players.
How To Play Pickleball with 3 Players: Strategy #2 – CutThroat Pickleball
Here is another strategy in which you may play pickleball with three players. As in other non-official types of pickleball games, there can be variations on the cutthroat method as well. In this type of game, 2 pickleball players are on one side of the net while a solo player is on the other.
The one-player side is always the serving side. ONLY THE SERVING PLAYER CAN SCORE POINTS.
The server rotates his service from the right-hand service line to the left-hand service line as long as he continues to win points. However, the person on the server side only has to defend and play within the half of his side of the court from which he served.
The players on the receiving side must return the ball and score within the service side from which the server served the ball. But, the single-side play is allowed to hit to either side of the receiving side which (of course has the two players. The boundary lines for the serving side player are determined by the side from which he serves. If the receiving team hits to the non-serving side of the opponent’s court it will be considered an out-of-bounds shot.
A server can also be confined to only a single fault if predetermined by all three players.
Players on the receiving side of the court get to the serving side of the court by breaking the server’s serve. (winning the point, although none is awarded to the receiving side). So, when the service is broken by the receiving side, the players rotate clockwise and the player on the left side of the receiving court goes around to the opposite side to become the new server to begin to score points.
- remember that the player on the single may hit the ball to any place within the normal boundaries of the receiving side.
- remember that the receiving side (two-player side of the court) must keep the ball inside the half of the single player’s court that he/she served from.
- as with any pickleball game, good placement of the serve is important, as well as ball control.
Six player Mixer in a game of Pickleball?
USA Pickleball shows a way in which you can do a “Mixer” to start a pickleball event. You can do that with a total of 12 players…wow. that would make up two 6 member teams.
Until the side out, Team A serves.
The game goes until side out, at which point four new offensive and defensive players from each team rush on.
The game is played with many quick substitutions until the team scores 11 points.
Bottom Line Playing Pickleball with the Player Numbers are Uneven
If you find yourself with an odd number of players or only one court and you want to do something outside of the normal rules of pickleball, go for it.
Obviously, if you are in one of the many pickleball clubs and you are playing in local tourneys or your club is strict about the rules, then you may not be able to add your own rules or bend them.
However, if not, just remember how pickleball began. They took what they had and they made up rules to fit a new game that became very fun.
Pickleball is a great and popular sport as it is, so you probably want to stick with the regular rules as much as possible. However, if you get in a bind with the number of players, adapt it to what you need and have fun!
