SCENE ON THE COURT
Occasional
Observations
from a Pickleball
Curmudgeon
By Craig Laughlin
‘THE PLAY WAS ALREADY OVER’ AND OTHER
KITCHEN MYTHS
A
n opponent recently hit what
would’ve been a winning volley—if
his momentum hadn’t taken him
into the kitchen. When called on
his fault, he declared, “The play was already
over.” As my dearly departed father would’ve
said, “He had both feet firmly planted in mid-
air.” As per rule 9.C.1, a kitchen violation is a
fault, “even if the ball is declared dead.” I’ve
seen players who, with arms flailing, struggle
to stay out of the kitchen as their partners play
on. When they finally fall in, however many
shots later, a fault is called and everyone has a
good laugh.
I always cringe when I hear someone tell a
newbie, “In pickleball, the lines are ‘in’ except
the kitchen line.” It’s not really a myth, but it’s
not exactly what the rule says either, and it’s
confusing. Why should some lines be “in” and
others “out”? And why is the kitchen line “out”
when you’re serving, but “in” when you step
on it while volleying? Wouldn’t it be clearer to
say (like in tennis and volleyball) that the lines
are all within the boundaries of the area they
26
delineate? So a serve that hits the kitchen line
is “in”—in the kitchen, that is—which is a fault.
The most annoying kitchen myth I hear
maintains that “a player can only enter the
kitchen while playing a ball that bounces
in the kitchen.” Rule 9.E. prohibits entering
the kitchen “…when a player is volleying the
ball”—period, end of story. That didn’t keep
a guy who showed up at our local courts
touting some obscure brand of paddle from
making a fool of himself by defending this
myth. When I said, “It doesn’t matter where the
ball bounces,” he got argumentative. When I
offered to show him the rule, he said he didn’t
need to read the rules. So I offered to bet my
paddle against one of his that he was wrong.
He took the bet and we shook on it. At our next
encounter, I handed Mr. Know-It-All an email
from a high-ranking USAPA official confirming
that his interpretation was wrong. He refused
to read it, so I still don’t have one of his off-
brand paddles, but neither does anyone else I
know. •
TO SUBSCRIBE CALL 888.308.3720 OR GO TO THEPICKLEBALLMAG.COM