With over 17 million active players in the world today, tennis remains a staple in most people’s lives. If you and your friends want to get together to set up a few matches, a tennis ladder might be the right call.
But what is a tennis ladder? How does it work and what do you need to do to get it up and running?
That’s what we’re here to look at today. Read on to find out more about how you can run your own tennis ladder.
What Is a Tennis Ladder?
A tennis ladder is a simple system for ranking tennis players in a certain group. Each player is assigned to a position within a ladder. These positions determine who plays who at any given point.
With a tennis ladder, it’s more of a way of facilitating more games based on who wins and loses. Players go up and down a ladder depending on their record. In other words, players aren’t knocked out after a loss.
Setting Ladder Systems Up
When setting up a ladder system, you need to deduce the skill levels of all players. You can do a round robin tournament where players play one another to determine their relative skills.
You can also seed players based on last season or the tournament’s record. You can also just assign players randomly since you’ll be adjusting their positions as they play matches.
Establish Ladder Procedure
When setting up a tennis ladder, make sure you establish how players can proceed upwards. That is, you can cap how many levels a player can challenge in terms of seeding.
If a player at the bottom of the ladder wants to challenge someone up the rankings, for example, you can set it so that they can only go up three levels. Once a higher-ranked player is defeated, the winner takes their spot.
Establishing this procedure keeps the games flowing and raises the stakes for each match.
Enforce Rules
When facilitating a tennis ladder, enforce all of your rules on the court and in the ladder itself. Add a buffer to the number of challenges players can issue, and make sure each challenge is being facilitated.
If a player challenges another, for example, you can give the higher-ranked player 24 or so hours to decide to take it on.
Constantly Monitor
The key to running a great tennis ladder system is keeping tabs on everything that’s happening. Make sure challenges are being accepted, and if not, the players are being compensated in the rankings as such.
Also, ensure that players have the best way to make challenges and report scoring is key! If you’re in charge of everything, you might have to arrange the logistics to make sure the matches take place and using a great ladder software makes your job easy!
Reserving Courts for A Tennis Ladder
Tennis ladder leagues can be complicated if you aren’t sure what the rules and common practices are. Looking for a reliable court reservation and client management system for your tennis club? Contact us today and we’ll provide the right solution straight away!
