getTING started WITH DINKR

At DINKR, our passion for pickleball has driven us to enhance the way you connect and play. We created DINKR to simplify game scheduling with friends and to make it effortless to find new playing partners, whether you're on your home courts or traveling.

Pickleball is more than a sport—it's a rapidly growing community of dedicated and enthusiastic players. Our mission is to celebrate and support this vibrant community, fostering its growth and bringing more people to the court.

We believe in the spirit of sportsmanship and camaraderie. Every game scheduled through DINKR embodies our core values: respect the game and your fellow players, be gracious in victory and generous in defeat, and cultivate friendships that enrich your playing experience.Above all, our philosophy is simple: play hard, play fair, and play more.

Read on to learn more about how to get started, and get in the game!

1. SET UP YOUR PROFILE

  • First things first, let's set up your profile. Beyond the usual name and email stuff, we want to know what makes you tick on the court. Are you a lefty or righty? What's your playing style? Got a favorite paddle? Oh, and don't forget to add your player rating – whether it's your best guess or an official DUPR rating.

    Enter standard biographical information

    • Add playing details: handedness, style, preferred equipment

    • Input your player rating (self-assessed or external like DUPR)

2. JOIN VENUES

  • Joining one or more venues automatically adds you to those venues’ lobbies.

    What’s a lobby? Simply put, it’s an open-ended group of users associated with the same venue. 

    Those venues can be one of several types: fee-based clubs, such as Lifetime, or Country Clubs. Pay-as-you-play venues, such as Charlotte Pickleball, free-to-play venues, such as city parks, or municipal facilities, or even your own private backyard court. Wherever you play.

    Lobbies serve 2 purposes. 

    Firstly, they help you find, and add, users who play at the same venues that you do. We’ll circle back to the 2nd purpose shortly.

    But you’ve joined one or more lobbies, now what?

    Well, you can skip straight to creating a game, and letting anyone you’re in the same lobby as join.

3. CREATE YOUR SQUADS

  • Here's where the fun begins! Create your dream teams with Squads. Give them cool names like "Pete's Powerhouse Players" and add your pickleball pals. Just remember, you can only add players who share your venues. Can't find your buddy? No worries – invite them to DINKR with a single tap!

    Name your squads

    • Add players who share your venues

    • Players can be added to multiple squads

    • Build curated lists of fellow players

4. FIND NEW PARTNERS

  • DiNKR is the first pickleball app to focus on the amazing community that the sport can boast. So it’s only natural that we’d make it easier for you to find new players to pickle with. Or maybe even more…

    With our ‘Match’ feature, you can opt in to finding romantic partners as well as playing partners. Your profile will then display the paddle heart, which will only be visible to other users who have also opted in. To everyone else, you’ll just be a friend they haven’t dinked with yet!

    • Use the advanced search filters to find players at your level in your area
    • opt in for romantic connections if that’s what you’re looking for
    • Meet your Match!

5. Create a game

  • Now, tell us where you love to play. Is it the fancy club down the street? The public courts at the park? Maybe the rec center where your league meets? Add them all! And guess what? When you're bitten by the travel bug, DINKR's got your back with a travel mode to find courts wherever you roam.

    • Add regular play locations: clubs, public courts, rec centers

    • Use travel mode to find venues away from home

6. KEEPING SCORE

  • Time to play! Whether it's a casual Saturday morning game or a fierce league match, DINKR's got you covered for scoring. Customize the screen to match your court's colors (because why not?), set up your pairs, and log those points. Switch up the teams as much as you want – we're flexible like that!

    Select 'score match' for any game type

    • Customize UI to match your court colors

    • Assign players to pairs

    • Enter scores and change pairings as needed

7. TRACK YOUR Dinkr rating

  • As you play and score games, you'll see your DINKR rating evolve. Think of it as your pickleball social credit score – it helps you find great matches when you're playing away from your usual crew. It works alongside official ratings to make sure you're always in for a fun, competitive game.


    Scores update your DINKR rating

    • Use alongside formal ratings for accurate social matching

8. Review your STATS

  • Curious about how you're doing? Hop over to your personalized dashboard. It's like your pickleball diary – wins, losses, who you've played with, your epic streaks. It's all there to help you see how far you've come and where you might want to up your game.

    Access your personalized dashboard

    • View playing history, win/loss records, trends, and streaks