For clubs
How to build a tournament draw and fixtures
The format decides how many days the tournament runs, how many courts it needs and how many matches each entrant gets — all at once. Choose it before registration opens; changing it afterwards means breaking a promise you already made to the people who entered.
Knockout: fastest, and the riskiest
Single elimination reaches a winner with the fewest matches: a 32-player draw is 31 matches in total. If courts or time are your constraint, this is the right choice.
The price is that half the field plays one match and goes home. In amateur tournaments that directly reduces next year’s entries. Adding a consolation draw solves most of it without changing the format.
Round robin: everyone plays, and it wants more courts
In groups of four, every player gets at least three matches, and entrant satisfaction is noticeably higher. The top two from each group move into a knockout stage to finish the event.
In exchange the match count rises sharply and so does the court requirement. Write your tie-break criteria (head-to-head, games difference, sets ratio) into the tournament rules before play starts — deciding after the group is finished guarantees a dispute.
Ladder: the format with no schedule
In a ladder, players sit on an ordered list and climb it by challenging the players above them. It has no fixed start or end date, so it can run all season.
Not needing court planning is its biggest advantage: players arrange matches between themselves. The club only maintains the standings and the challenge rules — how far up you may challenge, how often, and within how many days the match must be played.
Fix seeds and byes before the draw
The number of seeds follows the draw size: 4 seeds in a 16 draw and 8 in a 32 is standard practice. Seeds are placed so that they meet as late as possible.
When the entry count is not 16, 32 or 64, the shortfall becomes byes, and byes go to the highest seeds. Publishing that allocation before the draw is made prevents essentially every complaint that would otherwise follow it.
Plan courts and times alongside the draw
Once the draw exists, which match is played on which court and at what time is still undefined — and that is almost always where tournaments fall behind schedule.
Take an average match length (based on the number of sets) and divide by the court count for a realistic day plan. Build in a minimum rest period so nobody plays back-to-back matches — in doubles categories the same player can appear in two draws at once.