Between seasons
The last box result goes in and the club goes quiet until you build the next season. The ladder does not stop, so neither does the tennis. Nothing to restart in September.
The club ladder
One ladder, all year, for the whole club
Your boxes run the season. The ladder runs between them: every member on one list, a rating beside every name, and it keeps itself.
Part of Full League · Free for 14 days with nothing locked off
| Rank | 30 days | Player | P | Form | Rating | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ▲1 | D. ByrneWon 3 | 23 | 1421 | ||
| 2 | – | F. Mortimer1 awaiting confirmation | 19 | 13961382 settled | ||
| 3 | ▲2 | G. Poynter | 21 | 1352 | ||
| 4 | ▼1 | A. Reid | 17 | 1338 | ||
| 5 | – | R. Kaur | 20 | 1310 | ||
| 6 | ▼2 | M. Jackson | 16 | 1284 | ||
| 7 | – | J. OkonkwoResting −30 | 9 | 1262 | ||
| 8 | ▲3 | N. PetridesPlacing · match 2 of 3 | 2 | 1216 |
Top three
Won
Lost
Awaiting confirmation
Resting
Yet to play
C. IwuT. SharmaO. Bassey
G. EllisonW. Tandy+ 1 more
Why a ladder as well
The weeks your boxes do not cover
Boxes are eight good weeks and then a gap. A ladder is the thing that keeps a club playing in the gap, and it costs you nothing to run because your players run it.
The members a box does not suit
Shift workers, parents, the ones away half the term. A box asks for five matches by a date. The ladder asks for nothing: play when you can, and your place is still there when you get back.
Something to chase
A box tells you where you finished. A ladder tells you where you stand today, against everybody, and exactly who is one good match away. That is the bit players check on the way home.
How it works
Play, record, done
The same loop as your boxes, so there is nothing new for your club to learn. Two players agree a match in the group chat, play it, and one of them puts the score in.
The rating moves as you walk off
Whoever gets their phone out first records the score. Both ratings move there and then, and the other player is asked to confirm. Until they do, the row is purple and the settled rating is shown beside the live one, so nobody mistakes a claim for a result.
Nobody confirms? It confirms itself after three days, the same as a box score. There is no queue for you to work through and nobody to chase.
A walkover moves half of what a played match would. A retirement is a real match and moves all of it. You never have to invent a score to make the ladder add up.
Today
G. Poynter beats D. Byrne6-4 3-6 [10-8]
+14 / −14
Awaiting D. Byrne
Sun
R. Kaur beats M. JacksonRetired, 6-2 3-1
+11 / −11
Confirmed
Fri
D. Byrne beats A. Reid7-6(5) 6-3
+17 / −17
Confirmed
It finds everybody’s level in a fortnight
Everyone starts on 1200. Your first 3 matches are placing matches: they move you much further than later ones, and while they last you can play anybody on the ladder. A club that has never had a ladder sorts itself out in about two weeks of ordinary tennis.
After that the ladder rates matches within 5 places of you, up or down. Play whoever you like, of course. The range is about which matches count, and it is what stops the top of the ladder collecting easy points off the bottom.
5 is the default and the owner can change it, or set it wide enough that it never comes up. Starting from scratch is optional too: you can seed the ladder from your current boxes, so box 1 begins above box 4.
4A. Reid1451
5R. Kaur1436
5 above
6S. Hollis1418
7P. Nadeem1402
8E. Sandhu1391
9L. Beckett1377
10C. Iwu1364
11You1352
5 below
12T. Sharma1341
13O. Bassey1328
14G. Ellison1315
15W. Tandy1299
16H. Rahman1286
17K. Vasquez1271
18R. Millard1258
Beat somebody above you and you take a lot. Beat somebody below you and you take very little. Lose to them and it costs.
A rating that has gone quiet says so
After 90 days without a match, a rating eases down by 15 points a month. It never falls below the 1200 everybody started on, so resting can give back what was won and no more. One match stops it.
It is shown rather than done quietly: a resting chip on the ladder, and a dotted stretch in the player’s own rating line. Nobody has to wonder why a name has drifted down the list, and nobody who took the summer off comes back to a rating they cannot account for.
Both numbers are the owner’s to set, and resting can be switched off entirely if your club would rather a rating stood until it was played for.
Every player has this page, and every player can see everybody else’s.
Getting it going
A minute, and your club is already on it
There is no roster to type and no draw to make. If your players are in boxes, they are on the ladder the moment you start one.
Pick the sport and format
The same list your seasons use. Tennis, padel, squash, badminton or pickleball, scored by that sport’s own rules. Both are fixed after this, because every rating on the ladder is earned under them.
Everyone is already there
Your members are ticked by default. Start them all level, or seed the order from your current boxes so the ladder opens roughly where your club already knows it stands.
Press start, and that is that
The ladder appears as its own tab for everyone, on the link your players already have. Anybody you put in a box from then on joins it without being asked.
✓
Pick the sport and formatTennis · Two sets, championship tiebreak
✓
Choose who is on it34 of 34 members · seeded from Summer 2026
3
Start the ladderEveryone starts on 1200
Start ladder4
Tell the club it is thereSame link they already use
Tennis·Padel·Squash·Badminton·Pickleball·Singles
What players see
Enough to argue about, all of it true
A rating on its own is a number. These are the parts that make people check it twice a week.
Matches played
Beside every rating, because a rating earned over 23 matches is not the same claim as one earned over two, and the club can see which is which.
Form and streaks
The last five results as five dots, and a chip for anyone on a run. You can read a whole club’s month down one column.
Thirty-day movement
Up two, down one, or holding. Position is what players care about, and it is worked out from where the ladder actually stood a month ago.
A page each
Tap a name for their rating line, their peak, their record and every match they have played, whoever you are. Nothing here needs signing in to read.
Yet to play
New members sit in their own group instead of dead last on 1200. They are not ranked until they have played, and nothing chases them.
Nothing to maintain
No rating is stored anywhere. The whole ladder is worked out from the list of matches each time it is read, so correcting one score corrects everything it touched.
Straight answers
What it does not do
Worth knowing before you set one up, rather than after.
One ladder per club
One list, one sport, everybody on it. A separate squash ladder alongside the tennis one is not something you can do today.
Singles only
Doubles works in your boxes, where a pair is one entry. A doubles rating needs partnerships that outlast a match, and we would rather build that properly.
It does not arrange matches
No challenges, no booking, no emails at anybody. Your club sorts that out in the group chat, the way it already does for boxes.
It is not tied to your boxes
Players arrive from them and that is the whole connection. Nothing on the ladder promotes or relegates anyone, and nothing in a box moves a rating.
Full League and up
A free One Box club can see the ladder tab and what it would be, but cannot start one. Every new league gets 14 days of the full thing to try it.
The sport is fixed
Chosen once, when the ladder is created. Every rating on it was earned under that scoring, so changing it later would quietly rewrite what those numbers mean.
Questions
Everything else
How is the ladder different from our boxes?
A box is a season and a fixture list: five or six players, everyone plays everyone, and in eight weeks it is over. The ladder has no end. It is one list of everybody in the club with a rating beside each name, and it carries straight on from one season to the next.
You can run both, and most clubs will. The boxes give the club its structure. The ladder gives the players in it something to chase in the weeks in between, and somewhere for a member who cannot commit to a box.
Who ends up on it?
Everybody you put in a box. When a roster is saved, those players join the ladder too, so the club you already typed in is the ladder you already have. They sit under Yet to play until their first match, where they are not ranked and nothing chases them.
The league owner can add anyone else, and take anyone off. Taking somebody off sticks: they are not quietly added back the next time a season is built.
Does it arrange the matches?
No, and that is on purpose. Your club already sorts this out in the group chat, and a challenge system that emails people is one more thing to ignore. Two players agree a match, play it, and one of them records the score.
What the ladder does is the part that is actually hard: keeping the standing of every player in the club up to date without anybody maintaining it.
What stops someone putting in a score that never happened?
Their opponent has to confirm it, the same as a box result. Until they do, the row is shaded purple and both ratings show as unsettled. If nobody answers, it confirms itself after three days.
The score counts from the moment it goes in, though. The ladder is never three days behind the tennis, and the purple is there so nobody mistakes an unconfirmed rating for a settled one.
How do the ratings actually work?
Everyone starts on 1200. A win takes points off your opponent and gives them to you, and how many depends on the gap between you: beat somebody well above you and you take a lot, beat somebody below you and you take very little. Lose to somebody below you and it costs.
Your first 3 matches are placing matches. They move you further than later ones, so the ladder finds your level in a fortnight rather than a season, and you can play anybody at all while they last.
Nobody has to understand any of that to use it. Win, go up. Lose, go down. Beat somebody good, go up a lot.
Can we play whoever we like?
Yes. The range is about which matches the ladder rates, not who is allowed on court. Once you are placed it rates matches within 5 places of you, up or down, which is what stops the top of the ladder farming the bottom of it.
The owner can set that number to whatever suits the club, or set it wide enough that it never comes up.
What happens to somebody who stops playing?
After 90 days without a match, their rating eases down by 15 points a month, and it never falls below the 1200 everybody started on. Play one match and it stops.
It is shown, not hidden: a resting chip on the ladder, and a dotted stretch in that player’s rating line. A rating that has drifted down always says why. Both numbers are the owner’s to change, and resting can be switched off.
Does it reset every year?
No. That is the point of it. Seasons come and go around it, and archiving a season leaves the ladder exactly as it was.
If you do want a fresh start, the owner can archive the ladder and begin a new one. Everything that happened on the old one is kept.
Can we run doubles on the ladder?
Not yet. The ladder is singles. Your boxes run doubles happily, and a pair goes in as one entry there, but a rating on the ladder belongs to a person and a doubles rating would have to belong to a partnership that lasts longer than one match. That is a real design decision and we would rather do it properly than bolt it on.
Which sports does it work for?
Tennis, padel, squash, badminton and pickleball, scored by their own rules, exactly as a box is. You pick the sport and the format when you start the ladder.
They are fixed after that, because every rating on the ladder was earned under them. If your club wants a squash ladder as well as a tennis one, that is a second ladder, and today there is one per club.
Something went in wrong. Can we fix it?
The league owner can clear any score, and can record a match for any two players. Clearing one works every rating out again from scratch, so a wrong score fixed today leaves no mark on the ratings from last month.
That is worth knowing about the whole design: no rating is stored anywhere. The ladder is worked out from the list of matches every time it is read, which is why fixing the list fixes everything.
What does it cost?
The ladder is part of Full League: £150 a year, or £15 a month. There is nothing extra to buy and no per-player charge.
Every new league starts as a full league for 14 days with nothing locked off, so you can put a ladder up and see whether your club takes to it before you decide anything. A free One Box club still sees the ladder tab, and pressing it says what it would cost.
Have a look
Put a ladder up and see who bites
Type your club’s name and where to email you. You get a full league for 14 days with nothing locked off, boxes and ladder both, and no card at any point.