Match formats on offer
Pick the sport first and the format list narrows to that sport’s.
Tennis and padel
- Two sets + match tiebreak (to 10) (the usual default): split 1-1 and a match tiebreak to 10, won by two, settles it instead of a third set.
- Best of 3 full sets: split 1-1 and you actually play a third set.
- Best of 3, match tiebreak decider: plays the same as the first option (2 sets plus a 10-point breaker). It is offered under its own name for leagues that prefer that label.
- Single set or pro set to 8: one set, or one set to 8 games, settles it outright.
- Fast4: sets to 4 games with a tiebreak at 4-4, then a match tiebreak to 10. Built for a midweek evening.
- Two sets + tiebreak to 7: the usual default with a shorter decider.
Squash, badminton and pickleball
- Squash: best of 3 or best of 5, games to 11 or to 15, won by two.
- Badminton: best of 3, games to 21 (30 ends it whatever the margin) or games to 15 (21 ends it), both won by two.
- Pickleball: best of 3 to 11 or to 15, best of 5 to 11, all won by two. Or one game to 15 with no setting, where 15-14 wins it.
On these the tables say Games and Points where a tennis league says Sets and Games. It is the same table; it uses the sport’s own words.
Make your own
The last line of every format list is Make your own. It is there because a club that plays something not on the list above should not have to play something else. Pick how your club actually does it: match tiebreaks, short sets, full sets, or straight games for squash, badminton and pickleball. Then set the numbers, which is a row of pickers rather than a form: how many, what they are played to, whether a two-point margin applies and where it stops.
What you build is a sentence, and that sentence is what the format is called from then on. It is on the picker, on the score form and on every table, so nobody in your club ever has to be told what "our format" means. Scores are checked against it exactly as they are against the ones we wrote: a number the rules cannot produce is refused before it reaches the table.
A recorded tiebreak set shows in proper notation, for example 7-6(5).