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Choosing a format for a padel tournament

Padel has five formats of its own. Here is what each one is for, and how to set up Swiss end to end.

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Written by Maab Saleem

A padel tournament does not use the football templates. It has five formats of its own, and a configuration step that asks about courts, rounds and scoring.

Before you start

Create the tournament first and set its Enrollment type - singles or doubles. The format questions are built around that answer.

The five formats

Open the tournament, then Format.

The padel Choose a format screen with five cards: Swiss, Americano, Mexicano, King of the Court and Round Robin.

  • Swiss - fixed pairs play rounds against teams with similar results.

  • Americano - a social format where everyone gets to play with everyone.

  • Mexicano - a balanced competition that pairs players of similar skill levels.

  • King of the Court - a self-sorting competition, where pairs fight to claim the throne.

  • Round Robin - classic league-style, where everyone plays in a set rotation.

Setting up Swiss

  1. Select Swiss. The configuration appears underneath.

    The Swiss card selected and outlined, with the configuration fields starting below it.

  2. Choose a Standings type. Individual ranks each player on their own results. Team ranks the pair together.

    The configuration with the Standings type control outlined, offering Individual and Team.

  3. Choose Scoring - the points a match is played to. Pick 12, 24 or 32, or set your own with Custom.

    The configuration with the Scoring field outlined, set to 24.

  4. Choose How many players would be there? The list goes up in fours, from 4 to 32.

    The player count list open, showing 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24 and 28 players.

  5. Set How many rounds do you want to create?, the number of Courts you have, and the Gap between rounds in minutes.

    The completed Swiss configuration with the rounds field outlined, alongside courts, scoring and the gap between rounds.

    The panel underneath spells out how the format you picked actually works. It is worth reading before you commit.

    The Rules and regulations panel for Swiss, listing seven rules.

  6. Select Next.

What you will see

Scoryboard builds the tournament: a placeholder pair for every two players, a group phase holding them, and a knockout phase with the Swiss finals bracket.

The saved tournament showing a Swiss badge, four pairs in Group A, and a knockout phase with semi-finals and a final.

The pairs are named Player 1 & Player 2 and so on. Rename them from the Participants tab as your entries come in.

If it does not work

  • Next does nothing. The player count is required, and the message underneath reads "Enter a valid number of teams." Pick a number from the list.

  • You cannot type any number of players. The list only offers multiples of four, because padel is played two against two.

  • You expected the football templates. Group phase, knockout phase and group & knockout are the Football and Other Sports set. Padel has its own five.

  • Too many rounds for the courts you have. Rounds, courts and the gap between them decide how long the day runs. Check the Schedule tab afterwards.

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