• MPL provides the balls for all matches at MPL arranged facilities. The balls will either be stored at the facility or will be made available to team captains.
• If you play a rescheduled match at some other facility then you are required to bring appropriate balls (e.g. orange indoor Onix for school gyms).

• A minimum of 4 players are required for each match.
• Teams can send 5 or 6 players if desired. Only 4 players are playing at any given time but substitutions are allowed in order to allow the 5 or 6 players to share the 4 playing spots. See the detailed rules for information about substitutions during the match.
• It’s up to each team to decide whether they prefer to send only 4 players to each match (and leave the other 1 to 2 at home) or send 5 (or 6) players and share the playing time.

• Matches consist of 4 players from one team playing against 4 players on another team.
• Each match consists of 4 rounds of play. Rounds 1 to 3 are doubles. The 4th round is shared mini singles or regular singles.
• All rounds are 2 games to 11 win by 2 capped at 13.
• This results in all players playing 6 doubles games and 2 shared mini singles / singles games.

• The scoresheet contains boxes to fill in player names to generate the on-court matchups.

• At the start of each round, the away captain specifies 2 players for each court, after which the home captain adds their 2 players per court.

• The home captain is required to choose players such that the 4 players on the court for the current round does not match the 4 players that were on court in any previous round (including if substitutions were made in previous rounds).

• If desired, substitutions can be made after the first game of each round. The away captain goes first, followed by the home captain. In this case, both captains are required to choose players such that the 4 players on the court for the current round does not match the 4 players that were on court in any previous round (including if substitutions were made in previous rounds).

• The mini singles / singles round does not need to follow the requirement for different players than in previous rounds (i.e. any 4 players can be on each court).

• The same as in doubles rounds, 2 players from each team are selected for each court (away captain goes first).
• Games are still to 11 win by 2 capped at 13 and are still normal pickleball scoring (i.e. a point can only be scored when serving).
• The 2 players from one team alternate playing on the court with their teammate every 4 rallies (NOT every 4 points). The 2 players from the other team also alternate with their teammate every 4 rallies. This results in 2 pairs of opponents playing one shared game.
• At the end of the first game, the opponents (or substitutes) are swapped so that the players from one team play against the other opponent from the other team.
• At the start of each game, each pair of opponents (there are 4 pairs total between the 2 courts) agrees whether they are playing mini singles or regular singles. Only if both opponents desire regular singles will they play regular singles. If either opponent desires mini singles then those opponents will play mini singles.
• In mini singles, when your score is even you play the right half of the court and when your score is odd you play the left half of the court. Your opponent does the same. So sometime you are playing diagonal (either left or right) and sometimes you are playing straight on (either left or right sides). Mini singles is now described in the official rules of pickleball (which is linked on the Rules & Scoresheet page).

• All games from all rounds are scored the same. The team that wins the game is awarded 2 match points. If the other team scored at least 6 points in the game then that team is awarded 1 match point (5 or less points in the game gets 0 match points).

• The match winner is the team with the highest total of match points (sum of all match points from all games).

• In all matches except playoff elimination matches, it is possible for teams to have a tie. Playoff elimination matches have tie-breaker rules.

Click here to open the example scoresheet

Things of note on the scoresheet:

• The sheet will normally be filled in by hand (not by computer as in this example).
• The away team has 5 players and the home team has 4 players attending this example match.
• In match 1 of the first round, Homer and Marge defeated Luke and Leia by a score of 11-8 in game 1. The away team then substituted Maggie for Marge in game 2 and they lost to Luke and Leia by a score of 4-11. Then to the right of that the match points (0, 1 or 2) are assigned and totalled for the round (including the other games happening on the other court).
• In round 2, the away team put the same four players onto the two courts so the home team is obligated to change something so that the same four players are not on either court as in a previous round.
• Round 2 and 3 are also doubles rounds. The two games in each round are scored with match points assigned and totalled.
• Round 4 is the singles round. For match 8, in game 1 Bart plays against Leia and both alternate with Maggie and Luke every 4 rallies (NOT every 4 points). If both agree, Bart and Leia could play regular singles while Maggie and Luke decide to play mini singles. In game 2 of match 8, Bart now plays against Luke while Maggie plays against Leia (alternating with each other every 4 rallies) and once again both pairs of opponents choose whether they wish to play mini singles or regular singles.

Please email the MPL if you have any questions about the scoresheet or the above explanations.

• Teams should arrive early enough to be ready at the scheduled match time.
• The home captain is responsible for bringing a scoresheet to the match. Both captains should fill it out together during the match. The winning captain is responsible for emailing a photo of the scoresheet to the MPL after match completion (email to [email protected]).
• A 10 minute warmup is allowed at the scheduled match time.
• Captains should start the first round promptly after the warmup and should minimize the amount of delay between games and rounds. The 2 hour time limit is likely tight to get all 4 rounds played.