Introducing Friends Ready Live: Tennis Hits Without the Group Chat Spiral

The single most annoying part of Australian social tennis is the group chat spiral. Six messages back and forth about whether anyone is free, three "I am free but only after 4pm" replies, two cancellations, one "actually I have to pick up the kids" and a final agreement to "do it next week." Next week never happens. Friends Ready Live is our attempt to fix that.

What it is

Friends Ready Live is a new feature on RallyHub. There is one button. You tap it. It says "Go Live for 2 hours." While you are live, your friends see you in a feed as ready to play. They can tap one button to ping you straight into a hit invite. After 2 hours your status auto-clears so you do not forget you left it on and look "live" overnight.

The whole loop is: friend goes live, your phone shows them, you tap ping, they tap accept, you are at the court in 30 minutes. No group chat. No back-and-forth. No "see you next week" purgatory.

Where to find it

Two places:

• Your dashboard. The Friends Ready widget (already on most users' dashboards) now has a yellow Go Live button at the top. The friend cards below it light up green when a friend is live.
• A new dedicated page at /friends/ready. Full-screen view of every friend, grouped by status, with the Go Live toggle front and centre.

Why we built it

Three observations from a year of playing recreational tennis in Australia:

First, scheduling is the bottleneck, not the playing. Most weeks I want to play more than I do. The reason I do not is not lack of partners, it is the friction of finding out who is free.

Second, the people most likely to want a hit right now are the people who already played with you and liked it. That is your friends list. Not a stranger pool.

Third, the timing window matters. A hit organised three days in advance gets cancelled half the time. A hit organised for "in the next hour" almost never falls through. Friends Ready Live is built around that "in the next 2 hours" window.

Privacy choices we made

A few things we deliberately did NOT build into Stage 1, in case you noticed:

• It is opt-in, every time. Your status is not broadcasting unless you tap Go Live. No background tracking of when you are "available". No surveillance creep.
• 2-hour cap. Live status auto-expires. You cannot accidentally leave yourself live for a week.
• Only friends see it. Not players in your area, not the wider RallyHub community. Friends only.
• Manual end. Tap "End early" any time to clear immediately.

We talked about an "ambient availability" mode where the app would guess your status from app usage patterns. We chose not to build that. The trust cost is higher than the convenience win.

What is coming next

Friends Ready Live ships in stages. Stage 1 (what is live today) is the foundation: the Go Live toggle, the upgraded widget, the new dedicated page, auto-expiry.

The remaining stages over the next few weeks:

• Stage 2: Real-time updates. Right now the feed refreshes every 30-60 seconds via polling. Stage 2 wires it up so friend status changes propagate to your dashboard instantly without you reloading.
• Stage 3: Push notifications. Phone buzzes when a friend goes live. This is the unlock that turns Friends Ready Live from "an app you check" into "an app that buzzes you into playing." Max 1 push per friend per 4 hours, 8 per day total, quiet hours respected. We are not going to spam anyone.
• Stage 4: Settings and granular control. Choose which friends can see your live status. Configure your quiet hours. Mute specific friends.

How to actually use it tonight

If you are a RallyHub member and want to try it:

1. Open the app. Check your dashboard. The Friends Ready widget has a new yellow button at the top.
2. Tap Go Live for 2 hours.
3. Watch your friend list to see if anyone else goes live.
4. If they do, tap Ping and you will land in a hit-request prefill with them invited.

Or visit the dedicated page at /friends/ready for the full view.

One small ask

Friends Ready Live works better the more of your tennis crew are on RallyHub. If you have a regular hit partner or a club mate who plays often but is not on the platform yet, drop us a message and we will sort them an invite. The killer loop only kicks in once you have 5-10 friends on the platform who actually use the Go Live toggle.

Thanks for being part of the beta. This is the feature I personally wanted RallyHub to have most, and the one I think will make the biggest difference to how much tennis you actually play.

Cheers, the RallyHub team

Quick context if you are new here: RallyHub is an Australian social tennis platform built by two brothers. Invite-only beta. More blog posts here.