Blended lines: two sports on one court without confusing anyone

Put a second set of lines on a court and somebody will tell you it is confusing. Put them on badly and they are right. Done properly, blended lines are the cheapest way a park or a club gets a second sport, and after a game the players stop seeing the lines that are not theirs. Here is how we do it so that happens.

One sport owns the court

The first rule: decide which game the court is for. That sport keeps the most visible lines, white on a dark surface, full width. The second sport gets lines in a color that contrasts with the surface enough to see from the baseline but sits well below white in brightness: two shades from the court, we say. On a green court, pickleball in a light blue; on a blue court, in a soft yellow or a light gray; on a red or purple court, in a pale gray. Never a second white, never black, never a color the eye cannot tell from the main lines at dusk.

USA Pickleball's guidance for pickleball on a tennis court is a contrasting color for the pickleball lines and the tennis lines left as they are; the USTA's guidance for youth lines on a full court, the 36- and 60-foot blended lines, is a color that is visible but less prominent than the full-court lines. Both say the same thing in different words.

Where the lines go

Pickleball on a tennis court comes in two layouts. Two courts, one either side of the tennis net line, each turned sideways to the tennis court so the pickleball nets run parallel to the tennis net; the tennis net stays and the pickleball nets are portable. Or four courts, two each side, which uses the whole pad and needs the tennis net out of the way. The two-court layout is the quieter and the clearer; four courts get a park the most play per square foot.

Pickleball on a basketball court runs across the half courts, one or two courts, with the kitchen lines kept clear of the key. Kids' tennis on a full court uses the 36-foot court across the service boxes and the 60-foot court inside the baselines, in two colors if both are wanted.

Line width and net height

Pickleball lines are 2 inches wide; tennis lines 2 inches, with the baseline up to 4; the blended lines match the sport they belong to. Nets are the thing people forget: a pickleball net is 34 inches at the center and a tennis net is 36, so a pickleball game played under a tennis net is playing over a net two inches high, which changes the game more than the lines do. Portable pickleball nets, or permanent posts in sleeves for the two-court layout, solve it.

What we do on the day

1. Choose the colors against the actual court, with the chip, in daylight.
2. Lay out both sets of lines from the net line with a tape and a square, and check the pickleball courts against their nets, because a pickleball court laid out from the tennis lines by eye ends up with a kitchen that is not 7 feet.
3. Tape and paint the host sport's lines first, in two coats of textured line paint, then the second sport's.
4. Mark the net post positions for the portable nets with a small dot in the line color, so the nets go in the same place every time.

When not to blend

When the court is busy for both sports at the same hours; then they need their own courts. When the tennis players are a league and the pickleball players are a crowd, or the reverse, and one will drive the other off. When the court is due for resurfacing anyway, in which case a conversion costs little more than blended lines and gives the second sport a proper court. The multi-sport page lays out the six options, and the conversion article covers the full version.