Introducing Tournaments: Run a Real Competition Without the Spreadsheet

Every social tennis group eventually says the same thing. "We should run a comp." Then someone opens a spreadsheet, works out a draw by hand, posts it in the group chat, and spends the next three weeks chasing scores and answering "who do I play next?" messages. Half the time it never finishes. Tournaments is the feature that does all of that for you.

What it is

Tournaments lets any RallyHub member run a proper competition for their group. You pick a format, invite players, generate the draw with one tap, and record scores as the rounds play out. Standings recalculate automatically after every result. When the last match is done, a podium is locked in and the results feed straight into match history and XP.

There are five formats to choose from:

• Round Robin. Everyone plays everyone. Most points wins. Best for smaller groups who want maximum court time.
• Single Elimination. Win or go home. A classic knockout bracket for when you need a clear winner by the end of the day.
• Double Elimination. Lose once and you drop to a losers bracket for a second chance. Fairer than single elim, takes a bit longer.
• Box League. Players split into boxes of four or five, everyone plays everyone in their box, and box winners progress to a final. Built for recurring weekly competitions.
• American Mixer. Partners rotate every round so you play with and against everyone. The format for a social evening where mixing the group is the whole point.

A word on Box Leagues

Box League is the format we are quietly most pleased with, because it solves a problem the others do not. A knockout is over in a day. A box league runs for a season. You drop four or five players into a box, they play each other over a few weeks at their own pace, and the standings tick along the whole time. It is the structure that turns a one-off comp into a thing your club does every term, and it is the closest thing to pennant tennis you can run inside a friend group without any of the administration.

Where to find it

• The hub at /tournaments. Your tournaments, public ones to browse, and a fill-in board for when someone drops out.
• Create one at /tournaments/create. Walk through format, singles or doubles, scoring, and player cap.
• The format guide at /tournaments/formats if you are not sure which of the five suits your group.

From setup to podium

1. Create. Pick a format, set singles or doubles, choose a scoring mode (best of three sets, one set to six, a pro set to eight, or a short set to four), set a player cap, and mark it public or private.
2. Add players. Invite friends directly, or open it for join requests and confirm who is in.
3. Generate the draw. One tap builds the full bracket or box schedule with randomised seeding. No spreadsheet.
4. Play and track. Record scores round by round. Standings update live. When the final is recorded, the gold, silver, and bronze podium locks.

Why we built it

Two observations from a year of social tennis in Australia.

First, the appetite for competition is there, but the admin kills it. Plenty of groups want a comp. Almost none of them want to be the person running the spreadsheet. Removing that one job is the difference between a comp happening and a comp staying a "we should do that" forever.

Second, results feel better when they count toward something. A tournament match feeds your match history, your win-loss record, and your XP, exactly like a recorded social hit. The Saturday comp is not a separate thing off to the side. It is part of the same record as the rest of your tennis.

The honest bits

A few things worth being upfront about.

• Buy-ins are tracked, not processed. If you set a buy-in, the app shows the running pot to everyone, but it does not move money. The organiser still confirms payment the normal way. We are a tennis app, not a payment processor.
• Plan limits apply. Creating a tournament is open to everyone, but joining tournaments and running unlimited public ones sit on the Starter plan and up. Running a comp for your own group is the kind of thing we think a paid plan should unlock.
• Format is locked once the draw is generated. You can change anything while a tournament is in draft, but once the draw exists, the format is set. Resetting a draw before any results are recorded is fine.

What is coming next

Tournaments is live and complete end to end. The next round of additions:

• Seeded draws. Use player ratings to seed the draw so the strongest players land on opposite sides of the bracket.
• Match scheduling with reminders. Assign a court and time to each match, and a push notification fires roughly 30 minutes before you are due on.
• Club leaderboard tie-in. Tournament results feeding into club-wide rankings, not just personal stats.
• Head-to-head in the draw. Your record against your next opponent shown right there on the bracket.

How to actually run one this week

1. Open /tournaments/create.
2. For a casual one-off, pick Round Robin. For something that runs all term, pick Box League.
3. Invite four to eight of your regular hitting partners.
4. Tap generate draw, then record each score as the matches happen.

One small ask

A tournament is only as good as the field. If a couple of your regular opponents are not on RallyHub yet, drop us a message and we will sort them an invite so you can get a full draw together.

Run your end-of-year comp on this. Settle once and for all who in the group is actually best. The app will keep score so nobody can argue with the standings.

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.