The mission of the USA Pickleball Association (USA Pickleball) is to promote the development and growth of pickleball in the United States and its territories.

The USA Pickleball Association (USA Pickleball) is the national governing body for the sport of pickleball in the US and provides players with official rules, tournaments, rankings and promotional materials.

Pickleball is not a complicated sport and you can learn the basic rules in an hour or so.  For those that want to read 81 pages of ins and outs and dinks and dunks ... ALL the rules are just a click away. 

Official Rules

With the tremendous growth in popularity of Pickleball, unfortunately there has been an increase in injuries from playing Pickleball as well. Here is a list of some general Safety Rules for playing Pickleball that will help you decrease the chance of injury and keep you playing the best game ever!

Many people say they meet the nicest people playing Pickleball, and it is true all over the country! One of the reasons is because of the great respect you find for people and the game when you play Pickleball. USAPA recently released a 'Sportsmanship Guide' to put some of the common practices in writing. See this document here and see how many of these you can incorporate into your habits on the court!

Once you start developing more consistent skills it's very helpful to know your skill level. Most people have a general idea of how they play when compared to others, however when you play with a new group of people they may ask your skill level to help you enjoy your games.  Players within a rating or two of each other will often have good competitive games.  Anything more than that can be a little discouraging for everyone.  Remember you can always play just to have fun, but if you're going for a more competitive experience knowing your skill level can help.

USA Pickleball has some very good information on rating your skills.  If you get the chance to have someone trained in assessing skill levels it might be worth while. 

https://usapickleball.org/tournaments/tournament-player-ratings/player-skill-rating-definitions/

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