112 People Tried to Change the Rules of Pickleball This Summer. Here’s What They Want.

Every spring, USA Pickleball opens a portal. For two months, any member at the Challenger or Champion tier can log in and propose a rule change. Then the portal closes, a rules committee reads everything, the board votes, and by December 20 a new rulebook appears alongside a change document that most players never open.

What almost nobody knows is that the proposals themselves are public. Right now, at rules.usapickleball.org, you can read all 112 submissions for the 2027 rulebook, each with the submitter’s reasoning attached. Public comments closed June 15, so the whole pile now sits with the rules committee. Last year there were nearly 200.

We read all 112. It’s the most honest document in pickleball, because it isn’t a rulebook. It’s a list of everything that made somebody mad enough to fill out a form.

How to read the list

First, a filter. Most of these are housekeeping: fixing a cross-reference, codifying a casebook ruling, changing “may only call” into grammatical English. They’re written by referees, in referee language, with rule numbers cited, and they’re the proposals that actually pass. Look at what made the 2026 book: the word “clearly” added to the serve rules, a deadline for out calls, a rally-scoring fix, an adaptive-play section. Every one settled a fight refs were already having.

The rest were written by players after a bad Tuesday. Those almost never pass. They’re also the best reading, because they show you exactly where the game is chafing.

Three people want the word “waist” gone

The most-attacked rule in the database is 7.C.3, the one that says the ball must be “clearly no higher than the server’s waist.” Three separate proposals go after it. Two ask USAP to either define “waist” or delete the rule, since nobody can say whether it means the belly button or the belt line, and the reference photos the rulebook used to include have quietly disappeared. A third, number 2796, proposes tearing up the whole volley-serve versus drop-serve split and going back to what the sport started with: an underhand stroke, a clear low-to-high arc, and a ball released no higher than the shoulders. No waist, no wrist, no “questionable serve” replay.

Here’s our read. Adding “clearly” in 2026 was supposed to end the waist argument. Ask anyone at outdoor open play whether it did. The pressure is real, and three people arriving at the same rule independently is the kind of convergence a committee notices. The full rewrite is the most ambitious idea on the list and the least likely to pass whole, because it would redo Section 7 top to bottom and make every “is this serve legal” video obsolete overnight. A definition of “waist,” though, is overdue. Bet on that piece surviving in some form.

For the fine-print crowd: proposal 2750 wants to swap “arm” for “paddle” in the serve fault section so it matches wording USAP already changed elsewhere in 2026. That one will pass. That one always passes.

“Zero, zero, start”

Proposal 2795 wants to kill the third number. Games would begin at “zero, zero, start,” and from then on the server designation would be “first” or “second” instead of “one” or “two.” The reasoning: beginners hear “four, two, two” and can’t tell which numbers are the score and which is the server. Two other proposals circle the same complaint.

We love this and think it’s doomed. Twenty-four million people already say “two,” and the ones confused by it stop being confused after a week. This idea belongs in every beginner clinic in the country, and coaches can do that without a rulebook. But three proposals on the same pain point in one cycle is exactly how the waist thing built up steam.

The body bag reaches the rulebook

Proposal 2704 is titled “Dangerous tagging,” and it’s a brand-new fault. If a directly driven ball hits a defender in the chest or upper torso and leaves a mark, or hits them in the head at all, the tagged player can call a fault on the hitter, unless they moved into the ball on purpose. The submitter’s logic is that uncontrolled power shots “are likely to go out” anyway, so landing one on a human shouldn’t be rewarded.

We wrote a whole piece on the body bag code, and our position hasn’t moved: targeting is legal, and etiquette decides whether you’re a competitor or a jerk. This proposal wants to move etiquette into the rulebook, and it can’t work. “Leaves a mark” is not a standard a referee can apply, and in rec play it’s an open invitation for the most dramatic person on the court to lift their shirt and demand a point.

But don’t dismiss what it’s telling you. Somebody got hit hard enough, often enough, that they filled out a form. Player contact is on the community’s mind in a way it wasn’t three years ago, and paddle power is the reason.

The yacht club rebellion against rally scoring

In 2026, the provisional rally-scoring rule changed so that game point can be won on any rally, not only while serving. Proposal 2744 wants that undone. The submitter, a pickleball ambassador at a Florida yacht club, surveyed 43 players there who “overwhelmingly believe” a team should have to earn the win on serve.

Forty-three people at one club is a data point, not a mandate. But it’s a reminder that rally scoring is still provisional, still opt-in, and still not settled. If your rec group adopted it to save twenty minutes, you’re beta-testing a rule that is one board vote away from changing again.

Three ideas that would fix a Tuesday

Not everything on the list is a fight. A few proposals simply write down what decent people already do.

Replay by agreement (2607). A new rule: if all four players agree to replay a rally, for any reason, it’s replayed. If even one disagrees, the result stands. This is already how open play works, and the unanimity clause is the smart part. Nobody can force a do-over on a team that doesn’t want one.

The cracked-ball veto (2570). Right now a cracked-ball replay requires every player to agree the ball affected the rally, which means one sore winner can block it. The proposal drops that to a majority. In doubles a majority is three, so your partner’s vote isn’t enough. You need one honest opponent. That’s the correct number.

Diving out of the kitchen (2538). Today, if you touch the kitchen and then want to volley, both feet have to land fully outside the zone first. The proposal adds a second exit: if you’ve fallen and no part of your body is touching the kitchen, you’re out. The submitter’s argument is that a volley hit from your stomach, fully outside the line, “should be celebrated rather than punished.” Agreed.

A fourth, number 2592, would add double-bounce faults to the short list of things you’re officially allowed to call on an opponent in an unofficiated game, next to kitchen faults and service foot faults. You’ve been calling them anyway. This just makes you legal.

The rest of the pile, quickly

• A score cap (2605). Tournament directors could cap games at 15 when playing to 11, no win-by-two past the cap. It kills the 19-17 game that wrecks a bracket schedule, and it’s an option, not a mandate. Plausible.
• The 10-second serve fault (2622). Downgrade it from an automatic fault to a warning ladder, because refs have no timers and enforce it unevenly. Sensible, and only matters in officiated matches.
• A ball retriever on a wheelchair player’s grip (2787). Obviously yes. If this one fails, something has gone wrong.
• The kitchen line is in on a serve (2598). Every beginner asks why this is the only line in pickleball that’s out. The answer is that the line is part of the kitchen, and the serve has to clear the kitchen. Changing it would make the short serve a weapon. Hard no, but we admire the nerve.

Our favorite proposal, and what to do with the rest

Proposal 2540 asks for a new rule for players 80 and over: on a between-the-legs shot with your back to the net, you get two bounces. The reasoning is safety, in the submitter’s words, because “an elderly player might get their legs tangled and fall.” It was submitted April 2, it has zero chance, and it should be a house rule at every rec center in Florida by October.

Now the practical part. Submissions closed June 1 and public comments closed June 15, so these 112 are with the rules committee, then the board. The 2027 rulebook publishes by December 20 and takes effect January 1. The portal reopens April 1 for the 2028 cycle, and anyone can comment on a proposal, not just members.

So go read the waist proposals, the replay-by-agreement rule, and the score cap now, while they’re still just ideas. If one of them makes you mad, write a better version and have it ready for April. And when the change document drops in December and your rec group starts arguing, you’ll be the one who read the proposals in September.