Box leagues, ladders and tournaments that run themselves

Yes. When the season is done, Clayside builds the next one from the final standings: the top two up and the bottom two down from every box, or whatever numbers you set. It arrives as a plan, not a decision. Move anyone you like, add the player who joined in May, sit out the one who is away.

Before you commit it tells you what it spotted: matches still unplayed, someone going down who never played, and if two players finished level on points at the promotion cut, which tie-break separated them and why. Press the button and next season is drafted, ready for you to check.

Three months is what we recommend, and 190 days is the most a season can run. A box league works to a deadline: it is the deadline that makes people ring round and book a court. Past about three months the last few weeks are the same three people chasing each other and the table stops meaning much.

So run a year as three or four seasons rather than one long one. That is what the rollover is for, and every season you finish is a fresh table, a promotion to play for and a reason to turn out again.

Yes, alongside singles in the same season: boxes 1 to 4 singles, boxes 5 and 6 doubles. A pair goes into the box as one entry, any of the four players can enter the score, and either opponent confirms it. Nobody has to be nominated to report for the pair.

As big as you like on any paid plan: up to 20 boxes running at once, with up to 15 players in each. That is 300 people playing a season at the same time, which is more than most clubs put in a league in a year.

How you arrange them is your business, and it is not what you pay for: every paid plan runs the lot, and what a plan holds is how many members your club has. One Box runs one box for ever with nothing to pay, and you move up when you have outgrown the one you are on rather than because a date came round.

Each box can also have its own admin, so the work spreads, and up to fifteen people can run the club between them on any plan. What each one costs.

No, and most clubs change something. Pick how a match is scored: two sets with a championship tiebreak, best of three full sets, a single set, a pro set, fast4, best of five games to 11, best of three to 21, first to 15. Each sport comes set up the way that sport is normally played, and you can change it.

Then pick how the table is worked out. Standard is a point for a win and one for losing having won a set. There is also more for a straight-sets win, a point for every set, a point for every game with one for turning up, and versions that count a match nobody finished. Your club already has a system on the noticeboard, and the odds are it is one of these.

The legend under every table says which one you are using and how many points are on offer, so a player never has to be told twice.

Their remaining matches are the ones you have to decide about, and nothing forces your hand. Give the walkovers, leave the matches unplayed, or take the player out. The standings say what has actually been played either way, and the promotion draft at the end lists the fixtures nobody played so you are not deciding blind.

Somebody joining halfway is the easier half: add them to a box and their fixtures appear. Nothing is regenerated and nobody else's results move.

Yes, on every paid plan, and up to 8 of them: a club ladder, a doubles one, the ladies' section, the juniors. They run all year beside your boxes, carrying straight on from one season to the next.

Your club ladder fills itself: everyone you put in a box joins it, so there is no second roster to keep. For the others, members put their own names down and you pick who goes in, which on a ladder of pairs means choosing the pairs yourself.

Players record their own matches the same way they record a box result, and the ratings look after themselves. Everyone starts on 1200, and your first 3 matches place you. Here is the whole of it.

Yes, on every paid plan. Put the draw up and every round gets a play-by date, unless you tick Day tournament and play the lot on one afternoon; players arrange their own matches and enter the scores, exactly as they do in a box, and the opponent confirms it.

Three shapes cover what clubs actually run: a straight knockout, a championship with a plate for anyone knocked out first time, or groups feeding a knockout. Seedings and byes are placed the way the LTA publishes them, and an odd number of entries is not a problem: the draw pads out and the byes go to the seeds first. See more about tournaments.