How to run a weekend padel tournament

You are running a tournament on Saturday. The first question is not the bracket, it is how many matches fit on the courts you have in the hours you have.

The benchmark that works: four pairs per court. Twelve pairs on three courts, twenty-four on six.

First decision: groups of 4 or of 6

This is the decision everything else hangs on.

• Groups of 4: three guaranteed matches per pair in the group stage. Each group is played out entirely on its own court, six matches back to back, with rest in between for every pair.
• Groups of 6: five matches per pair. More padel per entry fee, but considerably more court time needed.

The knockout stage

After the groups, the group winners and the best runners-up go through. That way every pair plays at least one more match: in groups of 4, three group matches plus one knockout match makes four guaranteed matches per entry.

Group winners usually skip a round. That is not a favour: it is the reward for winning the group, and it also makes the numbers work when the entry count is not a power of two.

If you want nobody going home early, run a second consolation bracket for the pairs who miss out on the main one. Optional, but it changes the mood of the afternoon.

The schedule

Publish it before you start, not as you go. Every pair should know when they play and when they rest from the moment they arrive.

And leave slack. There is always one match that overruns, and a tournament with no margin carries that delay all the way to the final.

The tournament that finishes on time is the one that fills the next one.

The pair that drops out on Friday night

One always does. Have a reserve pair lined up, or a group of 3 you can convert to without rebuilding the whole draw.

It is the difference between a five-minute inconvenience and a morning spent rewriting schedules with everyone waiting on court.

On the day

One single source of truth: draws and results somewhere everybody can see them. If there is a sheet at the bar, another on the organiser’s phone and a third in someone’s head, there will be a dispute before lunch.

And results get recorded as each match ends, not at the end of the day. A result written down three hours later is no longer remembered accurately.

Do that, and on Sunday you have photos with the champions, a summary with every result, and people asking when the next one is.