Five Foot Pickleball Court Sidelines Create Safety & Playability Issues
By Cathy Blood
Editor-in-Chief, GreenwichPickleball.com
Greenwich, CT
November 13, 2024
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Why do so many towns keep building new Pickleball courts with less space than recommended by USA Pickleball?
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Pickleball is growing and changing fast.
Blink once and there’s a new rule. Blink twice and there are 30 people you’ve never seen before happily dinking away on your local courts.
Until about five years ago, most Pickleball courts created by municipalities were dual-use ‘conversions’ - tennis courts with Pickleball lines added on top. Easy peasy.
Some towns put two Pickleball courts on a single tennis court, others crammed four.
Adding Pickleball courts to existing tennis courts was, and still is, the most cost effective way for cash strapped towns to meet their exploding resident demand for Pickleball access.
Creating dual-use courts helps towns keeps tennis players (relatively) happy, and town tennis courts intact.
In the early 80s, when the governing body of Pickleball, USA Pickleball was formed, the strategy for growth was to encourage these ‘dual use’ court adaptations.
What better way to grow the sport than by encouraging the modification of existing town tennis assets?
In their first annual rulebook in 1984, USA Pickleball published minimum size recommendations that would allow towns to squeeze up to four pickleball courts on a single standard tennis court (60’ wide by 120’ long).
That translates to five foot sidelines and eight foot backcourts, with the court itself measuring 20’ X 44’.
The Town of Greenwich CT wisely placed only two Pickleball courts on each tennis court. With just two courts per tennis court, Pickleball players in Greenwich CT enjoy fantastic 18+ foot side court margins, and fine, but slightly inadequate 8’ back courts. And tennis players enjoy less intrusive merged lines. It’s a win, win, win.
While USA Pickleball states that the minimum recommended area for a Pickleball court is 30’ by 60’ feet, they add that a full “10’ margin” is “preferred.” That recommendation translates into a playing surface of 40’ x 64’ per Pickleball court - a dreamy sitch, but unlikely.
Seeking to meet rising Pickleball demand as cost-effectively as possible, many towns opted for minimum sizing vs. preferred sizing. They squeezed as many as eight Pickleball courts on two tennis courts. But it was tight even then.
Fast forward to 2018 when Pickleball really started taking off. That’s when the ‘cram it in’ approach to supply & demand proved to be very shortsighted.
This became especially evident when the sport’s popularity exploded during COVID and younger, even more athletic residents began to play.
YES, four pickleball courts can be put on a single tennis court if using the bare minimum guidelines, but given how the sport is now played, and who is playing, it’s not a great idea.
According to ProductiveParks.com “While making as many pickleball courts as possible may seem like a good idea, use caution while planning. The four-court layout causes significant overruns on either side of the tennis court, which could lead to hazardous conditions.”
In reality, the need to accommodate player movement on the courts argues against cramming four pickleball courts on a single tennis court.
A more conservative approach ensures a safer playing environment.
Why are Adequate Sidelines and Backcourt Space so Important for Safety?
When designing a pickleball facility, it's crucial to allocate sufficient side space and backspace to meet both functional play and safety standards. Otherwise players run into walls, obstacles and fences when attempting to play the ball.
Above, players comment on a social media post about a Pickleball court with narrow sidelines.
The USTA has had similar ‘recommended guidelines’ in place for tennis courts for nearly a *century (*not a typo!).
With Pickleball growing so fast, towns are now beginning to undertake full, permanent conversions of tennis pads to Pickleball. They are also investing in new ground-up Pickleball facilities.
We recently asked Carl Schmits, Chief Technical Officer of USA Pickleball, to clarify the USA Pickleball Rule Book recommendations on court size.
He stated “...for new construction we recommend 34' x 64'. The only situation where 30' x 60' is used is in tennis court conversions - the existing pads are generally 60’ x 120’.”
But some towns still seem to be stuck in a tennis mindset, and base even their NEW Pickleball facility designs on a tennis footprint of 60’ x 120’.
This is happening right now, in Greenwich, CT with a planned NEW four court dedicated Pickleball facility, the town’s first, on a 59’ by 121’ pad - check out the diagrams. (In this case both budget cuts and site restrictions are impacting design.)
Perhaps this ‘squeeze it in mindset’ is because towns continue to think of Pickleball as a backyard sport, vs. a legitimate sport like tennis.
Would a municipality build a new tennis facility that did not meet the minimum USTA guidelines? Unlikely. But Pickleball? Anything goes. And to be honest, desperation makes players in some communities easy to appease.
The minimum guidelines for NEW CONSTRUCTION from the governing body of Pickleball, USA Pickleball and their construction partner, the American Sports Builders Association (ASBA) is 34’ by 64’. This means minimum 7’ SIDELINES and 10’ backcourts.
View the USA Pickleball 2024 Rulebook, page 12 for court sizing. New Construction guidelines first appeared in the 2021 USA Pickleball Rulebook.
To have truly great courts you could build courts with the USA Pickleball’s ‘preferred’ 10’ margin all around. But that would be asking a lot from cash-strapped and space-limited towns. Dream on players!
The ‘New Construction’ recommendations were enacted in January 2021 by USA Pickleball, and on November 1, 2023 by the ASBA (by joint committee). The ASBA manual is available for purchase here. The two year lag is because the ASBA only publishes their construction manual once every three years, incorporating any earlier USA Pickleball rulebook changes at that time.
Knowing this publishing lag exists, companies and towns will often refer to the recommendations of both organizations during design.
As Pickleball gains legitimacy in the Northern states, we can only hope that ‘real sport’ status might be closer than players think.
Why did USA Pickleball add a recommendation specifically for NEW construction courts in 2021?
There were two reasons USA Pickleball added a recommended size for NEW construction courts to the USA Pickleball Rulebook in 2021, and two years later added the same recommendation to the 2023 edition of the ASBA construction manual.
USA Pickleball saw that more municipalities were choosing to invest in dedicated, ground up facilities to meet Pickleball demand. But many towns were basing their designs on the minimum recommendations intended for tennis court conversions. Towns were making LARGE taxpayer funded investments in new courts that were inadequate for the current state of the sport.
Recreational play had advanced rapidly, and players continue to elevate their game. Pickleball grew exponentially during COVID. This easily accessible, social sport, combatted isolation and became more popular among all ages.
Skill levels rose among rec players. Play became more intense and athletic. High school kids and twenty somethings were joining 60+ year olds on the courts. The small minimum recommendations were inadequate for the new reality of rec pickleball play - it’s not just for retired folks with hip replacements anymore. The average age of players keeps dropping.
So these new 2021 USA Pickleball recommendations were an effort to help prevent municipalities from making substantial investments in substandard courts.
Building concrete courts is a huge investment, it’s not just painting lines on existing asphalt assets that are long past their 15 year useful life. Decisions made today will haunt both players and elected officials for the next 25 years.
Post-tensioned concrete is expensive - it has embedded posts, complicated drainage and buried electric. There’s no going back to fix it ‘after the fact’.
Right-sizing new construction Pickleball courts is one of those ‘now or never’ decisions.
Listening to the Experts…
Robert Cassidy, the Executive Director of Building Design & Construction (BD+C) consulted with Randy Futty, Joint Committee Task Force Leader about the new November 1, 2023 Pickleball Construction Manual from the American Sports Builders Association (ASBA) and USA Pickleball. Three other Task Force members from the Joint Committee shared their thoughts.
The ASBA Pickleball Construction and Maintenance Manual is what many towns use as a recreation ‘building bible’.
You should definitely read the full interview, but below are some excerpts from the experts.
Says Futty, “Involve local players in your planning. Pickleballers are messianic about the sport and will gladly give you valuable free advice on local conditions. Meet with them on the court and try your hand at the game. You’ll be hooked.
Follow the recommended dimensions for pickleball courts. The minimum total surface area is 30x60 feet; the ASBA manual recommends 34x64. If the courts will be used for tournament play, 40x70 is recommended.”
Futty adds, “Don’t cram your courts. Technically speaking, you could squeeze four 30x60-foot pickleball courts into the same space as one 60x120-foot tennis court, but they’d be “awful tight,” says Futty. Don’t do it.
Pay careful attention to fencing. The manual recommends 34x64 feet for the fence line. “You don’t want people running into fences, posts, or benches and suing the condo association or apartment management,” says Futty.
If possible, add at least a couple of feet around the court, and invest in fence padding, especially if you expect to host younger or more athletic players. That’s like an insurance policy,” he says.
Imagine a Ribbon Cutting Ceremony…
Imagine it’s 2025 and your Mayor is proudly cutting the ribbon on your town’s brand new Pickleball courts - that were built to the old, ASBA 2020 minimum recommended court dimensions.
The social media reaction from residents on the narrow sidelines might look something like this - these are actual posts (with redacted names).
Communication is Key
Players could wait until after the fact to complain about the new courts - despite all the effort that went into getting them built - but let’s call that counterproductive. It would be much better if players contributed their opinions - respectfully - early in the process.
And if your town is like most other towns, there’s no extra bucket of money sitting around to fund a second ‘better’ dedicated pickleball facility. And there is often no other location to build a second facility.
So players need to speak up. There’s no ‘third time’s a charm’.
And for those players who say they’re happy to be given even a corner of a parking lot under a freeway, and that anything is better than nothing - that’s how you get courts built next to an industrial chicken farm. Think positive!
Lack of communication between Parks and Recreation departments and players may be the reason why so many inadequate court facilities get built.
The danger of building a new facility that makes players feel unsafe or courts that have reduced playability is that Pickleball players may continue to prefer playing on the town’s tennis courts.
The natural tension between Pickleball and Tennis constituencies may continue as the number of Pickleball players continues to grow and the two groups compete for resources.
Has the supply and demand issue been improved by this new, not great and probably unsafe, facillity? Not as much as it could have been.
After construction is complete, neither players nor town staff want to be asking themselves, to quote the Talking Heads, “Well, how did I get here?"
Avoid a big financial mistake and start talking before planning.
So what does the recommended minimum 7 foot sideline provide to players?
As towns contemplate building new dedicated pickleball facilities with 5’ sidelines, let’s talk about what that means to players.
Significant Wall Damage from Player/Wall collisions.
This court has 6’1” sidelines. This wall has been repaired multiple times.
Proper sidelines give players more room to maneuver and react to wide shots. Seven feet is the minimum standard, set by USA Pickleball in 2021, for safety and playability.
These recommended minimum dimensions are key to injury prevention, and allows the game to be played by a wider range of players, of diverse ages, skill levels and athleticism.
Properly built courts improve accessibility, playability AND safety.
If you’ve ever face-planted into a chain link fence, or bounced off a wall after running at full tilt for an ATP, you are intimately familiar with the hazards of a narrow sideline or inadequate back court.
Sometimes recreation facilities get built without player input by busy, well intentioned town departments who are doing their best with limited resources, budget and staff. Players can help by sharing what they know and voicing their concerns before taxpayer $ are spent.
If Pickleball is your happy place, know that the day will come when it will gain the respect that other sports enjoy in your town.
All it takes is more Pickleball players.
So keep sharing the joy and welcoming new players to the Pickleball community.
Have any thoughts about court sizes and Town / Player communications? What’s in your town? What has worked, what hasn’t? Email us at greenwichpickelball@gmail.com.
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Cathy Blood is the Editor-in-Chief of GreenwichPickleball.com (a passion project) and is a 2020 Pickleball convert. She’s the Partner in charge of Marketing at Speritas Capital Partners, and she owns NEST New Media, a digital SEO content strategy business where she helps business owners write content for their websites that tells their story and engages future clients.
