Skinny Singles Pickleball

What is Skinny Singles?  It’s a pickleball drill played using only half of the court in a one on one game. Skinny singles is a great way to work on your skills. Working in a much smaller area helps you hone your skills and get lots of repetitions in.

Skinny Singles – Cross Court or Same Court

There are 2 formats to Skinny Singles.  You can play cross-court or same court.  See the image below. If you are playing cross court you play to the diagonal court from you and if you are playing same court you play directly across from each other. Skinny singles is a great pickleball drill because you can work on all of your skills.

How Do you Play Skinny Singles?

Skinny singles is played and scored like regular singles except you can only hit the ball across the net into your opponent’s half of the court (which half depends on whether you are playing cross-court or same-court).  If you are playing cross court you changes alternate service areas like in normal singles play. The scoring is the same as normal singles pickleball.  Any ball that lands outside of the “skinny” court that it is supposed to is considered out.

Here’s an example. First server serves from the even side at 0-0. The serve is hit cross-court into the opponent’s even side.  This is where the game of skinny singles gets unique. All subsequent shots (the return-of-serve, drops, volleys, etc.) in skinny singles must be hit “cross-court” – from the even side to the even side when the server’s score is an even number.  If the score is an odd number all shots go back and forth from the odd side to the odd side.

Playing skinny singles will make your game stronger so next time your on the court and short a few people start practicing your game.

Still Confused

Here is a great illustration from thirdshotsports.com of the different variations of skinny singles you can play