In pickleball, you can only score points when your team serves. This is why you hear players (or referees in tournaments) call “side-out” like in volleyball. Normally games are played to 11 points, and you must win by two points. Some tournaments are played to a score of 15 or 21. Points are played until one team commits a fault and points only go to the serving team.
The person serving calls out the score, which is three numbers:
- the serving team’s score
- the receiving team’s score
- the serving team’s 1st or 2nd chance to serve
For example, at the start of the game, the score is, “0-0-Start” because the first team to serve a game only gets 1 chance to serve. When they lose the point, the serve passes to the other team.
