Singles pickleball: why it feels like a different sport
Most pickleball players spend 95% of their time playing doubles. Then one day they try singles and feel like they’ve walked onto a completely different court. The dink rallies are gone. The third shot drop is risky. The court is suddenly enormous. And within two games they’re breathing like they ran a 5K. Singles pickleball isn’t just doubles with half the people — it’s its own sport with its own strategy, and it’s worth learning if you want to be a complete player.
The key differences
1. The court is the same size. You are one person.
In doubles, each player covers roughly half the court. In singles, you cover the entire court by yourself. That’s twice the ground, and the ball will find the gaps if you don’t move well. Singles punishes slow feet in a way doubles never does.
2. Dinking is much less useful
The whole point of dinking in doubles is to hold the Kitchen line with your partner and wait for one of your opponents to pop up. In singles, there’s no Kitchen-line formation — you can’t “hold the line” with one person. Any dink exchange is just a stalemate, and worse, it’s exhausting because you’re covering the whole court alone. Most singles points are won from the baseline with drives, not from the Kitchen with dinks.
3. The serve matters much more
In doubles, the serve is just the start of the rally. In singles, the serve is an attacking weapon. A hard, deep, angled serve can jam the opponent into the corner and give you a short return to attack. Great singles players serve big.
4. The corners are everything
Singles strategy revolves around hitting the ball to the deep corners — making your opponent run diagonally across the court on every shot. A player who can’t move well laterally is easily beaten. The player who can open up the court by moving their opponent side-to-side usually wins.
5. Endurance is huge
A singles game is far more tiring than a doubles game. You’re hitting more balls, running more, and there’s nobody to share the load. Fitness becomes a deciding factor — a technically worse player with better conditioning can beat a technically better player who gets winded.
Positioning in singles
Forget the Kitchen line. In singles, your default position is:
- On the serve: behind the baseline. Never inside the court — a deep return will push you back.
- On the return: also behind the baseline, slightly to the side you expect the opponent to attack.
- During the rally: midway between the baseline and the Kitchen line, roughly along the T. This position lets you move forward for short balls and back for deep ones without committing to either extreme.
- On a clear attacking opportunity: move forward toward the Kitchen, but only when you have the ball on the offensive.
The “stay at the Kitchen line” rule of doubles doesn’t apply here. In singles, the Kitchen line is actually a dangerous place to camp, because the opponent can just lob or drive past you into the deep corners.
Key singles shots
- The deep drive. Hit with pace, aimed at a deep corner. The primary rally shot in singles.
- The deep serve. The weapon that sets up the whole point.
- The angled passing shot. When the opponent comes to the Kitchen line, you hit a ball that passes them on one side. Works because they can’t cover the whole court alone.
- The drop shot. Not the third shot drop — a surprise short shot that lands just over the net when the opponent is back at the baseline. Underused and very effective.
- The lob. Works better in singles than doubles because the opponent has to cover the entire baseline alone.
What to drop
Things that are important in doubles but not in singles:
- Dinking patience. In singles, long dink rallies are a waste of energy.
- The third shot drop. Still useful sometimes, but you won’t be hitting a drop every rally like you do in doubles — often a drive is better.
- Partner communication. Obviously no partner, but also no “call outs” on line calls (you call your own) or “mine/yours” confusion.
- Kitchen-line positioning. As mentioned, camping the Kitchen in singles is bad.
Singles serve rotation
Singles scoring uses the two-number format (your score, opponent’s score). You serve from the right when your score is even, left when odd. When you lose a rally, the serve passes to your opponent. No “server 1 vs server 2” nonsense. It’s simpler, and it’s actually the easiest part of learning singles.
Skinny singles
Skinny singles is a half-court variation of singles, played either only in the even-court side or only in the odd-court side. Both players use only half the court, which reduces the physical load and makes it accessible to older or less fit players. It’s a great way to introduce singles to someone who finds full-court singles too tiring — and it’s a better workout than doubles while still being manageable.
Is singles worth learning?
For most 55+ recreational players, the honest answer is “not much.” Singles is demanding, it’s a different game from what you’re probably practicing, and your local open play is almost certainly doubles. Spending your practice time on singles often means worse doubles, not better.
But as a change of pace, singles is fantastic — and it reveals holes in your game you didn’t know you had. If you can play two good singles games, your doubles movement will feel twice as easy.
Recommendation: play singles a few times a year, just to keep your fitness and movement sharp. Keep doubles as your main game.