How to seed and draw your club championships

The club championships are the competition every member notices. Most clubs run them once a year, with a finals day at the end, and the draw is published long before it. It is also where most of the arguments start. Why is she seeded? Why is he playing the top seed in round one? Why does my doubles partner’s husband get a bye?

Almost all of that goes away with three things decided before entries close. Who is seeded and why, how the draw is made, and the date each round must be played by.

The events to run#

Decide the events before you ask for entries, and keep the list short enough that the courts can carry it:

• The main singles and doubles, men’s, women’s or open, and mixed doubles.
• A plate for each main event, for players who lose their first match. Everybody gets at least two matches.
• Junior events, often by age group, and sometimes over-45s or over-55s.
• A handicap event, if your club has the levels to set the handicaps fairly.

Cap how many events one player can enter, three or four is common. It stops the keenest members playing on every court on finals day.

How many seeds a draw takes#

Seed too few and the strongest players can meet in round one. Seed too many and half the draw is decided before it is made. The governing bodies’ rule, which most clubs follow, is:

Entries	Seeds
Up to 8	2
9 to 16	4
17 to 32	8
33 to 64	16

A doubles pair is one entry, and is seeded as a pair.

Choosing the seeds#

The fair way to seed is on this year’s results, by a method the committee writes down and publishes before entries close. Any of these works:

• Box league positions: the top boxes this season, in order.
• The club ladder, if most entrants are on it.
• A club level worked out from results across everything the club runs. See tracking player stats and records at your club for what a club can count.
• A national rating, where most entrants have a recent one.
• Last year’s results, but only as a tie-break between players this year’s results cannot separate.

What does not work is seeding on reputation: the player everybody knows is good, who has not played a competitive match since March. Two committee members choosing seeds in the bar is exactly the conversation a published method prevents.

Making the draw#

The seeds go on fixed lines. Seed one goes at the top and seed two at the bottom. Seeds three and four go into the two remaining quarters, and so on, so the strongest players can only meet late. The byes go to the seeds first. Everybody else is drawn by lot. How to make a tournament draw with byes works through the lines and the byes for a real number of entries.

Two ways to make it so nobody can question it:

• In public. Names in a hat on a club night, with two members watching and the result written up there and then.
• With a tool that follows the rules. The free tournament draw generator places the seeds and byes by the regulations and draws everybody else by lot. Make the draw once, with somebody watching, and publish it.

Either way, never redraw because somebody dislikes the result. A draw made twice is a draw nobody trusts.

Keeping players apart#

Some clubs keep certain players apart in the early rounds: doubles partners in the singles, members of the same family, or players from the same team. If yours does, agree the rule before the draw and keep it simple. The usual one is that two such players go in opposite halves, by swapping one with the nearest unseeded player who is not affected. Write down every swap you make.

A draw made twice is a draw nobody trusts.

The plate#

A plate is a second draw for everybody who loses their first match. It doubles the matches for the players who need them most, newer and less experienced members, and it is often the event they remember. Run it on the same play-by dates as the main draw, a round behind.

Play-by dates for every round#

A championship that runs for weeks needs a date for each round, or the draw stalls behind one unplayed match. Set them when you publish the draw:

• One to two weeks a round for singles, a little longer for doubles, which need four diaries to agree.
• The final round before finals day finishing at least a week before it, so the finals can be published.
• A rule for a match not played by its date. The committee can extend it once, award a walkover to the player who offered dates, or take both out.

Publishing the draw#

Put every event’s draw on the noticeboard and in the group chat the day it is made. Add the play-by dates and the name of the person to contact. Update it as results come in. A draw that is a month out of date is the first sign a championship has stalled.

Running it from the draw to finals day#

The free tournament draw generator makes the draw. Clayside makes the same draw and then runs the event. It sets the play-by dates, and the players arrange and enter their own scores. The winners move on, and every event’s draw is live for the club up to finals day.