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Run your first tournament

Role requiredTournament organizer

What you’ll achieve: by the end of this guide you’ll have run a tournament from sign-up to final ranking — teams registered and paid, groups and courts drawn, matches created, live scores entered, and results published.

Before you start: you need a club with Stripe connected so teams can pay their entry online. Creating the event itself happens in Club Manager, so make sure you can sign in there too.

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1. Create the event

Section titled “1. Create the event”

The tournament event is created in Club Manager; Competition Manager sends you there and signs you in automatically.

  1. Open the Schedule screen and tap Add Event.
  2. In the Open Club Manager dialog, tap Continue. A new tab opens Club Manager, already signed in, on the event-creation form.
  3. Create the event as a tournament in Club Manager, then return to Competition Manager — your event now appears under Upcoming.

Detailed guide: Create a tournament →

2. Build a rulebook

Section titled “2. Build a rulebook”

A rulebook captures how your tournament is scored and run. The editor is a seven-step wizard.

  1. Open Rulebook Manager and tap Create Custom Rulebook.
  2. Work through the seven steps — Base, Tiebreak, Schedule, Format, Knockout, Ranking and Summary — using Next to advance. Start from a preset (e.g. RFEVB Amateur) and adjust only what you need.
  3. On Summary, review the highlighted changes and tap Save Rulebook.

Detailed guide: Rulebooks →

Section titled “3. Publish the sign-up link”

Teams register through a public page at …/inscriptions/<your-tournament-id>. Share that link wherever your players are.

  1. On the event dashboard, make sure the Registrations switch is on. (Turning it off shows the Close inscriptions? confirmation and stops new sign-ups.)
  2. Share the tournament’s public inscriptions link. Players open it, fill in the team questions, and pay their entry.

Keeps Registrations on and shares the …/inscriptions/<id> link.

Detailed guides: Publish the sign-up link → · Split registration → · Register a team (share with players) →

4. Manage teams & payments

Section titled “4. Manage teams & payments”
  1. Open the team list to see every registration, its STATUS and payment state, and a “teams confirmed” counter.
  2. Expand Pending split registrations to see teams where one player paid but their partner hasn’t finished yet.
  3. Open a team to edit its roster, adjust its Entry Points (seed), change its status, or issue a Refund.

Detailed guides: Manage registrations → · Form answers →

5. Generate groups

Section titled “5. Generate groups”
  1. Open the groups screen and check the Total Teams count.
  2. Choose Round Robin (one group) or Divide in groups, then enter How many groups?
  3. Tap Generate Groups. For more than one group you’ll pick a distribution — Serpentine is recommended for balanced groups — then confirm.

Detailed guide: Groups →

6. Draw the court map & timetable

Section titled “6. Draw the court map & timetable”
  1. Attach a layout: choose Load Existing Layout or Create New Layout and name it.
  2. Add your courts to the map with Add court, then save.
  3. Once matches exist, use Auto-assign all courts to distribute groups across courts (times are adjusted so games don’t overlap), or assign each group to a court by hand.

Detailed guide: Court map & timetable →

7. Create matches & assign referees

Section titled “7. Create matches & assign referees”
  1. (Optional, for the officials-pool mode) register your referees under the officials list with Add Official.
  2. Open Create Matches and set the Start time:, Match Length (minutes) and Match format:.
  3. Under Referee Assignment, pick how referees are chosen — Team-based — Auto-balanced is the default; Officials pool uses your registered officials.
  4. Tap CREATE MATCHES.

Detailed guides: Create matches → · Referees →

8. Run brackets & enter live scores

Section titled “8. Run brackets & enter live scores”
  1. When the group phase has results, build the final stage: Create Brackets (single elimination) or Create Double Elimination Bracket, confirm the seed order, and save.
  2. During play, open the court/field view (each court is headed Net followed by its number), type each set’s scores on the match card, and tap Save.
  3. Set a match to Ongoing to push it to the public live-results page at …/myMatches?t=<your-tournament-id> — share that with spectators.

Detailed guides: Brackets → · Live scoring → · Follow live results →

9. Close the tournament & feed the ranking

Section titled “9. Close the tournament & feed the ranking”
  1. Make sure every match is marked Finished — the close is blocked otherwise.
  2. Open the close screen and review the tabs: Final Ranking, Ranking Points (if the tournament is linked to a ranking) and App Points. Adjust final ranks if you need to.
  3. Tap Close Tournament and confirm. Final standings, app points and any ranking points are written, and results are published.

Detailed guides: Close the tournament → · Rankings →

What’s next

Section titled “What’s next”