How to organise a tournament with friends: formats, draw, scoring

Step 1: pick a format that fits your group

The format decides everything else, so choose it before anything else. The right pick depends on how many players you have and whether people came to compete or to socialise.

• Americano — partners rotate every round, points are individual. Best for 6–16 players of mixed levels; everyone plays with everyone.
• Mexicano — like Americano, but each next round is drawn from the live standings, so equal-strength players meet. Best when levels differ a lot.
• Classic sets — fixed pairs, sets to 6 games. Best for 4–8 players who want 'real' tennis matches.
• Knockout cup — lose and you are out. Best as a short final after a group stage, not for a whole evening.

Step 2: make the draw fair

The number one complaint in friendly tournaments is unfairness: someone plays more games than others, or meets the same partner three times. A fair draw guarantees every player the same number of games and maximum variety of partners and opponents.

Count the rounds before you start. For example, 8 players on 2 courts need 7 rounds for a full Americano cycle; 10 players on 2 courts need 15 rounds so everyone gets exactly 12 games. If someone arrives late, rebuild only the remaining rounds — never replay finished ones.

Step 3: score from the court, not from memory

Paper scoresheets get lost and spreadsheets need a laptop. The reliable way is to enter each result on a phone right after the round, while everyone still remembers the score.

In Luc the organiser or any player enters the score in a few taps, and the standings update instantly for everyone — players refresh their own phones instead of asking 'who won?' between rounds.

Step 4: keep a rating so the next evening matters

A one-off tournament is fun; a season-long rating is what brings people back. When every match feeds a personal ELO rating and a league table, each evening becomes a chapter in a longer story.

Luc keeps one ELO rating per sport per player, levels from Beginner to Legend, medals for tournament podiums and cups for playoff wins — automatically, from the scores you already entered.

A free app that does all of this

Luc is a free web app built exactly for this scenario. You create a tournament, share a link or QR code, players join from their phones, and the app builds the fair draw, collects scores live and maintains the club rating.

There is nothing to install: Luc runs in the browser and can be added to the home screen on iPhone and Android. The interface speaks English, Russian and Portuguese.

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