Can a Badminton Court be used for a Sanctioned Pickleball Tournament?

You might be surprised to find out that the answer is No. If the tournament chair of a usapa sanctioned Pickleball Tournament used an indoor badminton court, he would be in violation of rule 2.A. of the USAPA Official Tournament Rule Book.

Official Dimensions of Badminton Court

“What? I thought you said a badminton court and a Pickleball Court were the same size.” Yes they are. The outside dimensions of a badminton court are 20 feet X 44 feet and so are a Pickleball Court (see diagram above). However, the front (short) serve line for badminton is only 6.5 feet from the net. That same line becomes the NV-Line for Pickleball.

That means the NV-Line is six inches closer to the net than it should be for a legal Pickleball court.

I e-mailed Denis Dacey, the chair of the usapa rules committee, asking that they make a comment in the rules to accommodate the use of an indoor badminton court for sanctioned Pickleball Tournaments. I know more and more tournament play is happening in the Northern States of the US, especially Michigan and New York State.

Here is the reply I received,

“Wayne

Thanks for the below. It has been considered moving the non-volley line from 7' to 6.5'. At the present time there is no intention of making this change. For the players with a longer reach it gives them that much more of an advantage at that line. With good players the dynamics of the game changes considerably when the line is moved to 6.5'. With that said any sanctioned tournament needs to play on courts with the 7' line. Most are doing this by putting down masking tape at this 7' line for Pickleball play.

Regards

Dennis Dacey

USAPA Rules Chairman”

I am not sure about you, but with the number of lines you find on a badminton court, life is already difficult, and now we have to add a new line 6 inches back from the short serve line, for 6 inches because it might give an advantage to a player with long arms.

I am hanging from an overhead bar in the basement as I write this, so I can have longer arms to take advantage of that extra 6 inches.

Well, since we do not have any usapa sanctioned tournaments in Ontario, this is really not a concern and I have no plans to tape an extra line for Actifest, 2010. However, it seems that a very short comment under Section 2.A. allowing a shortened NV-Line to be used for indoor play would be a simple solution to accomodate the rapid growth of indoor Pickleball.

I hope the rules committee of Pickleball Canada will consider doing so if the usapa does not.  I understand that the majority of the play in the US is still outdoors on either dedicated Pickleball courts or tennis courts painted with proper Pickleball lines so they have no pressing need to change.


Just another one of the concerns that I see we need to address for Canadian play.