Drop Serve Review Committee

USA Pickleball Rules Committee Chairman Mark Peifer has announced the formation of a Drop Serve Review Committee. When the 2021 Rulebook was released, it included the Drop Serve Rule option as a provisional rule.  The word provisional meant the rule would be evaluated for unintended or unexpected outcomes over the next year.

“We didn’t want to get to the end of the year and then ask ourselves, well, now what?” said Mark.  “It’s important that we get an early start to determine what basis will be used is to make the decision to either keep the rule as is, drop it altogether, or modify aspects of the rule based on experience in 2021,” he added.​

The Review Committee is comprised of a cross section of players and officials to make sure the rule is examined on all sides of its implementation to determine if the reasons for having the rule, as explained in the Rules Change Document, stand the test of time.  Committee members include professional players, referees, instructors, trainers, USA Pickleball Ambassadors, and an IFP participant.  Several USA Pickleball Ambassadors across the different regions of the country, who were nominated by their respective Regional Director, will serve on a subcommittee. The Committee and subcommittee expect to reach out to players in their respective playing spectrum or geographical region for input to the committee’s decision process.
The Committee, under the chairmanship of Certified Referee Jack Feinberg, will first establish what criteria will be used to evaluate the rule’s effectiveness and then, following a period of data collection, will make a recommendation to the USA Pickleball and IFP Rules Committee on what becomes of the rule in the 2022 Rulebook.
Anyone with input on the rule is welcome to send his or her thoughts to Jack Feinberg at jfeinberg@usapickleball.org.  Jack will share collected comments with the rest of the Committee.