Pickleball Games: How to Play Dinkles

Dinkles is a four-player pickleball game that is both fast paced and easy to learn. Besides also being incredibly fun to play, dinkles disciplines your approach to net play along with your patience and appetite for long rallies near the NVZ line.

All four players will start at the kitchen line, two vs. two like a game of doubles. To start a point, two balls are fed at the same time in a cross-court direction. Using a neutral feed, any two of the four players can start the cross-court rally. Players will then dink cross court, and the ball must land inside the kitchen to be “in.” Once an error is made in the two-ball rally, one player yells, “Dinkles!” At that point the remaining ball becomes an all-court rally between all four players and no longer has to land inside the kitchen.

• The first (kitchen) rally ball is worth 1 point.
• The second (all-court) ball of the rally is worth 2 points.
• The team that loses all three points switches positions at the kitchen line.
• Games are typically played to 21, but you can modify anyway you wish.

Dinkles is a lot of fun to play, but it also gives players the chance to improve many facets of their game since there is so much going on during a point. Here a few things you can expect to improve by playing dinkles:

• Team communication. You get used to the sound of two rallies occurring at the same time along with one player yelling “dinkles” once the first rally ends. This can be a little chaotic during the two-ball rally, and playing dinkles will enhance your ability to selectively hear and filter other stuff out.
• Shot or rally tolerance: The phrase basically describes a player’s ability and willingness to hit as many shots as needed to finish a point. A single dinkles rally can last longer than 30 shots and a lot of players tend to lose focus after hitting a few to several. So dinkles is a great way to beef up your appetite for longer rallies!
• Shot quality and versatility: Whether you are right- or left-handed and/or have a preferred side to play from, you have to hit cross-court and inside-out dinks on the forehand along with cross-court and inside-out backhand dinks. Playing dinkles will help convert any dink weaknesses into strengths because everyone learns to hit dinks from all four corners of the kitchen and everywhere in between.

Dinkles is a fun way for any level of player to practice, improve and expand their mastery of those repeated must hit shots near the kitchen. It is also a great game to use as a warm-up prior to official game play as the point structure presents elements of both singles and doubles. In addition, dinkles (and dingles, for that matter) are ideal for group lessons and/or clinic settings. After a few tries at focusing on keeping your own first point inside the kitchen while blocking out the cross-fire noise of the other, and then shifting gears to a full-court rally, you will definitely notice a boost in your calmness and confidence at net.

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