If you’ve ever played a game of competitive singles pickleball, you know the feeling: you’re sprinting toward the sideline like your life depends on it, lunging for a passing shot that feels miles away, only to realize you’ve left the entire other side of the court wide open.
The Professional Pickleball Association (PPA) recently announced that it will be introducing a narrower court for pro singles play on a trial basis at its upcoming professional Challenger Series events in Houston, TX, Harbour Island, FL, Newport Beach, CA, and Opelika, AL. The modified court will bring the sidelines in by 1.5 feet on each side (3 feet total). So, instead of being 20 feet wide, the court will now be 17 feet wide.
On a full-width court, singles is dominated by the "power game." Because there is so much ground to cover, players are forced to hit hard, deep drives to keep their opponents pinned back. The nuanced dinks and resets that make pickleball unique often disappear in singles; it’s simply too risky to move to the kitchen line when you have 20 feet of width to defend alone. By trimming 1.5 feet off each side, we may see more dinking, and the PPA may be helping move pickleball back toward its roots, rewarding strategy as well as swiftness and stamina.
