Add Skinny Singles to your Pickleball Drill Routine

When practicing and drilling on the pickleball courts, we’re all trying to find those drills that closely mimic the variety of shots that would be executed in a “real” game – dinks, drives, drops, serves, and volleys – all while adding in a mental pressure component to the session. Skinny singles is the perfect drill that checks all these boxes!

What is Skinny Singles?

Skinny singles is a pickleball drill/game that is played using half-the-court with one other person.

Because skinny singles is only played on half-the-pickleball-court, it more closely mimics the shot selections and strategies you would use when playing doubles, rather than singles.

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Additionally, because you don’t have a partner when playing this drill, you will be the one hitting all the shots on your side – which means you will get twice the number of repetitions. That also means, however, that you will have nobody to blame but yourself if the game turns ugly. 😉

Skinny Singles Pickleball Court Dimensions

Skinny singles can be played on a standard or mini pickleball court. The dimensions of an official standard pickleball court are 20 ft x 44 ft. A mini court is 44 ft long, but only 10 ft wide – half the width of a standard one.

On both a standard and mini court, there is 15 ft from the baseline to the Non-Volley Zone (kitchen). The Non-Volley Zone is 7 ft from the net to the NVZ (kitchen) line.

You can play both cross-court and down-the-line skinny pickleball on a standard court while you can only play down-the-line on a mini court.

How Do You Play Skinny Singles?

Skinny singles is played and scored just like “regular” singles with one exception. You can only hit the ball cross-court into your opponent’s half-of-the-court – the same half into which the ball was served. If the ball isn’t hit cross-court into the appropriate half (the appropriate half depends on the score of the game) then it’s a fault.

Here’s an example:

Assume the first server begins serving from the even side at 0-0. The serve is hit cross-court into the opponent’s even side. This is where the game gets unique. All subsequent shots (the return-of-serve, drops, volleys, etc.) must be hit “cross-court” – from the even side to the even side when the server’s score is an even number and from the odd side to the odd side when the server’s score is an odd number.

Across from Each Other (Down-the-Line)

The traditional method of playing skinny singles is to serve cross-court and play cross-court into the half-of-the-court in which the serve was hit. However, to practice “down-the-line” drop shots and volleys, the game is often modified such that each player is positioned on the side of their court according to their own score.

This means that if the score is 2-2, for example, both the server and return-of-server will be positioned on their even sides and rallies are played cross-court from even side to even side. However, if the score is 3-2, then the server will be positioned on the odd side and return-of-server will be positioned on the even side. This results in the rally being played straight across from each other (and not cross-court).

If it seems strange to be serving straight across – and you just can’t do it – feel free to serve cross-court and then have the server immediately slide over.

Why Does Skinny Singles Mimic the Shots & Strategies of Doubles?

Because the width of the court is cut in half, resulting in each player covering only approximately 10 feet, the shots and strategies utilized in skinny singles are very similar to that of doubles. The effectiveness of hitting hard-driving passing shots is sharply minimized. Rather, drop shots will be frequently used. Dinks will be common. It truly plays very similar to doubles.

Virtually every shot in your pickleball doubles repertoire can be practiced when playing skinny singles.

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As an added bonus, you will also get the opportunity to work on serves and returns.

Check out Top 10 Pickleball Doubles Strategies to Up your Game for doubles strategies that you can use in skinny singles.

What about Around-the-Post (ATP) Shots?

When playing cross-court, one modification to the game that is frequently implemented is to allow ATP shots – even if the ATP does not go cross-court into the appropriate half of your opponent’s court. Leveraging this modification to the rule helps reinforce the concept that hitting sharp cross-court dinks may not be the preferred shot selection and, consequently, may result in easy, rally-ending ATPs for your opponent.

A Great Drill

Skinny singles is a great drill/game when there are only two people available to play. It’s not as brutal as playing a singles game. It will closely mimic the shots and strategies of doubles. It’s also a great warm-up drill to use with your partner before playing a tournament match.

See you on the courts. Keep drilling!

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