Tournament & League Glossary
Every term an organiser meets, in plain English.
Formats
- Round-robin
- Everyone plays everyone. The fairest format, and the most expensive in court time.
- Pool
- A small group, usually 4 to 6 players, who play a round-robin among themselves. Normally one pool per court.
- Single elimination
- Straight knockout. Lose once and you are out. Fastest format; half the field plays one match.
- Consolation bracket
- A second draw for first-round losers, so a knockout still guarantees more than one game.
- Ladder league
- An ongoing season of repeating cycles, where players move up and down groups based on results.
- Cycle
- One complete block of play in a ladder league, after which promotion and relegation happen.
The draw
- Draw
- The complete plan of who plays whom, on which court, in what order.
- Seed
- A player's assigned rank going into a draw, used to keep the strongest players apart until late.
- Bye
- A free pass through a round because you have no opponent. Byes go to the highest seeds.
- Equal play
- The guarantee that every player in a pool plays the same number of games. Harder than it sounds, and the thing players notice most.
- Partner rotation
- Ensuring nobody partners the same person twice within a round.
- Sit-out
- A match you are not playing in, because the pool has more players than a match seats. In pools of 5 and 6, sitters usually umpire.
- Fixed-partner doubles
- A format where a pair stays together all event and is drawn and ranked as one unit.
Scoring and results
- Scoring format
- The rule for winning one game, such as first to 11, 15 or 17, or a 21-point rally game.
- Rally scoring
- A point is scored on every rally, regardless of who served. Games are quicker and more predictable in length.
- Point differential
- Points scored minus points conceded. The usual tiebreak when two players are level on wins.
- Head-to-head
- Who won when the two tied players met. Often used as a tiebreak before point differential.
- Walkover
- A win awarded because the opponent did not appear.
Ratings
- Rating
- A number estimating playing standard. In RallyIQ it runs 2.0 to 8.0, starting at 4.0.
- Expectation
- The scoreline predicted from the two teams' ratings before a match is played. Ratings move on the gap between this and the real result.
- Provisional
- A player with too few matches for their rating to be trusted yet. Their number moves faster until it settles.
- Rating-tight
- A pool whose players are as close in standard as possible, so every match is competitive.
- Schedule strength
- How strong your opponents were overall, compared with the field average. Context for a win-loss record.
Common questions
What is the difference between a rating and a ranking?
A ranking is a position in a queue - being 4th says nothing about the gap to 3rd. A rating is a measurement, so the distance between two numbers is meaningful. That is why ratings can build fair groups and rankings cannot.
Is a "pool" the same as a "group" or a "flight"?
Yes. Different sports and regions use different words for the same thing: a small set of players who play a round-robin among themselves.
Run your next event on RallyIQ
Build the draw, score live across every court, and share results with a link.