Skinny Singles vs Full Court Singles

[Bud]

I've played both.
Here are my thoughts.

Skinny PB Singles is much more fun and helps one's doubles game. It's extremely challenging and side out scoring to 11 is quite a workout if you're opponent is approximately the same level. With every point, you can easily make it to the NVZ and clean passes are more difficult vs full-court. Every move and shot mimics PB doubles play.

Full court PB singles is unbelievably difficult with an equal opponent. It's exhausting and more difficult than covering a singles tennis court, IMO. Why? You win no free points on serve and you can't hit clean winners by power alone. Winning a point requires at least 5 shots racing side to side as well as up and back tracking down balls with little forward momentum, spin or bounce height. You don't have nearly as much time to reach the ball vs tennis. It's easier to track down lobs but difficult to put away overheads. Passing is easy if you can work up to the NVZ. The trick is getting to the NVZ. Once there, full court dinking is so much lateral movement back and forth. Every dink equates to approximately 10-15' of lateral movement if you're going for high percentage dinks. Overall, I didn't enjoy playing and I understand why most choose to play doubles or skinny singles.

What are you experiences playing both?

My tennis level, when playing 12-15 hours per week in doubles was 4.5+ and 4.5- in singles.I played 75% doubles and 25% singles.

 

[tennytive]

Last time I played full court singles the score was 4 - 1 for 15 minutes! The game took 45 minutes before I won 11 - 5. One game was like playing a set of tennis.
That was pre lock down, now I'm older and slower and stick to doubles. Had a great session yesterday able to hang with some 4.5s nice enough to let me join them.
Your post is making me wonder if skinny singles would work for badminton…

 

[Bud]

Last time I played full court singles the score was 4 - 1 for 15 minutes! The game took 45 minutes before I won 11 - 5. One game was like playing a set of tennis.
That was pre lock down, now I'm older and slower and stick to doubles. Had a great session yesterday able to hang with some 4.5s nice enough to let me join them.
Your post is making me wonder if skinny singles would work for badminton…

It should work for badminton. You may have to modify it slightly because of the rally scoring system.

 

[Bud]

I did some research on skinny PB singles using rally scoring to 21.

Every point played results in a point regardless of who is serving. The only exception to this is on game point.

The position of each player is dependent on the score.

If the score is 0/0 (even/even) the point is played cross court deuce to deuce.

If the score is 1/1 (odd/odd) the point is played CC ad to ad.

Is the score is 1/0 or anything odd/even or even/odd the point is played down the line from either side, depending on which player is even and which is odd.

For example, using cardinal directions of a court laid out north to south:

If the player on the "north" side is even and the "south" side is odd, the point is played on the "west" side of the court DTL.

If the player on the "north" side is odd and the "south" side is even, the point is played on the "east" side of the court DTL.

When a player reaches 20 points, they can only score the game winning point on their serve. They can't win by an opponent's error.

Seems like that would work for badminton.

 

[sureshs]

I've played both.
Here are my thoughts.

Skinny PB Singles is much more fun and helps one's doubles game. It's extremely challenging and side out scoring to 11 is quite a workout if you're opponent is approximately the same level. With every point, you can easily make it to the NVZ and clean passes are more difficult vs full-court. Every move and shot mimics PB doubles play.

Full court PB singles is unbelievably difficult with an equal opponent. It's exhausting and more difficult than covering a singles tennis court, IMO. Why? You win no free points on serve and you can't hit clean winners by power alone. Winning a point requires at least 5 shots racing side to side as well as up and back tracking down balls with little forward momentum, spin or bounce height. You don't have nearly as much time to reach the ball vs tennis. It's easier to track down lobs but difficult to put away overheads. Passing is easy if you can work up to the NVZ. The trick is getting to the NVZ. Once there, full court dinking is so much lateral movement back and forth. Every dink equates to approximately 10-15' of lateral movement if you're going for high percentage dinks. Overall, I didn't enjoy playing and I understand why most choose to play doubles or skinny singles.

What are you experiences playing both?

My tennis level, when playing 12-15 hours per week in doubles was 4.5+ and 4.5- in singles.I played 75% doubles and 25% singles.

Singles Pickleball is far more cardio intensive than tennis.

 

[ByeByePoly]

I've played both.
Here are my thoughts.

Skinny PB Singles is much more fun and helps one's doubles game. It's extremely challenging and side out scoring to 11 is quite a workout if you're opponent is approximately the same level. With every point, you can easily make it to the NVZ and clean passes are more difficult vs full-court. Every move and shot mimics PB doubles play.

Full court PB singles is unbelievably difficult with an equal opponent. It's exhausting and more difficult than covering a singles tennis court, IMO. Why? You win no free points on serve and you can't hit clean winners by power alone. Winning a point requires at least 5 shots racing side to side as well as up and back tracking down balls with little forward momentum, spin or bounce height. You don't have nearly as much time to reach the ball vs tennis. It's easier to track down lobs but difficult to put away overheads. Passing is easy if you can work up to the NVZ. The trick is getting to the NVZ. Once there, full court dinking is so much lateral movement back and forth. Every dink equates to approximately 10-15' of lateral movement if you're going for high percentage dinks. Overall, I didn't enjoy playing and I understand why most choose to play doubles or skinny singles.

What are you experiences playing both?

My tennis level, when playing 12-15 hours per week in doubles was 4.5+ and 4.5- in singles.I played 75% doubles and 25% singles.

Yep++ … have to experience it to believe it. I have been totally gassed in two hard games of singles. I now stick with doubles.

At some point I would like to do drills, but court seldom open in our open play. Skinny singles probably would be good option when a court is open.

To me … the simple reason pickleball is more tiring than you would expect is because game is heavily tilted towards defense … more opportunities to end points in tennis.