5 Competition Modes For Your Next Tennis Club Tournament

Organizing a tournament for your tennis club is one of the most exciting things to do (we’re certain we don’t need to tell you that!). But it’s far too easy to get stuck doing the same system of play all the time. Try one of these competition modes in your tennis club!

Know Your Competition Modes

Before we jump right into our top 5 competition modes for your next tennis club tournament, it’s important to understand the sheer format variety.

Regardless of the type of game you want to play, it will fall into one of these categories:

Challenge — This form tends to run for a long time (generally over a year or a season). Here, club members will challenge each other to matches during the period. A pyramid/league table is used for scoring (i.e. losers move down, winners move up).
Elimination — Traditional knock-out games! The Women’s Tennis Association and ATP use this elimination style. They’re great for prize-money games, but if you have a lot of beginners in your club, they’ll quickly be left out.
Group — For the social element, group formats are the best. They tend to be popular among club owners who want everyone to have a fair shot.
Rotation — If you want all your members to play each other, the rotation style is best. It can be a type of group tournament too, depending on how you choose to structure it.
Team — Whether each team is small or rather large, you can mix it up. If your club has a lot of novices, opting for smaller teams is best.

Okay, now is a great time to move onto the best part — the top 5 competition modes for your next tennis club tournament! Hopefully, you’ll find a couple of ideas you are yet to try.

Top 5 Competition Modes For Your Next Tennis Club Tournament

#1 The Progressive Knock-Out

While the traditional knock-out is effective (it’s used in the Olympic Games and World Championships after all), it doesn’t give weaker players a chance to play lots of matches.

The progressive knock-out, however, does just that.

Here’s How to Do It:

Allocate players however you wish.
Winners play winners in various rounds until one player stands unbeaten.
Losers play other losers.
If a player loses in the first round, they won’t be able to finish in the top half.
Players that find themselves losing on the second round will only be able to get to the lowest quarter in the final.

The main advantage here is that you get a full ranking order with a penultimate match while including weaker players. However, it will take more time than a traditional knock-out.

#2 The Compass Draw

A compass draw tennis tournament is divided into 8 sections. Each of them depicts the point of a compass (hence the name). As soon as a player loses a match, they move into a different bracket.

It’s a fantastic way for junior players to have a taste of what professional competitions are like without having to spend a lot of money.

Here’s How to Do It:

Use a reservation suite like Court Reservation to set up the matches.
Players talk to each other to set up their match.
Each player brings a can of balls to the match. One is used in the match, the unopened one is given to the match-winner in the seeding rounds and the loser in the final draw rounds.
Matches are best in 2 out of 3 sets.
Once the match is finished, players will enter the scores on the site.
The first 4 rounds are “seeding”. Once they’re finished, the final draw is posted.
Prizes are given to the winner and runner-up of the main bracket and the consolation bracket.

The main advantage here is that you get a full ranking order with a penultimate match while including weaker players. However, it will take more time than a traditional knock-out.

#3 4 Singles and 1 Double

This is a team tournament type, so you’ll need to set these up beforehand. On the day, you should toss a coin to see which team will be “ABC” or “XYZ”. Then, the captains can give each player in their team a letter.

This competition mode is fantastic for socializing and maintaining morale (especially essential during these still unprecedented times!).

Here’s How to Do It:

Set up teams of 2 to 4 players.
Do best of 5 matches (i.e. 4 singles and 1 double).
The order of play should be: single, single, double, single, single.

#4 The Stop Rotation

This competition mode is fantastic for players of all ages and abilities. It’s another team tournament where players win points for their group as play continues.

Here’s How to Do It:

Set up two teams — A and B. Of course, you can give them fun names if you prefer.
Place each member of team A across the net from team B.
Set a “stop” target (first to 5 points, for example).
Shout “go” to start all the matches.
First one to reach 5 points (in this case) shouts “stop”.
Players move to the court on their left.
And it continues until you run out of time!

5 The Leveler

Finally, we have the leveler which can be completed in one day. It helps make everyone equal because stronger players have to win points to beat their opponent.