A 16-pair tournament with a consolation draw: two draws, two champions

A sixteen-pair tournament works on its own: four groups of four, all sixteen into the round of sixteen, and a normal knockout from there. Thirty-nine matches.

But it has an awkward moment, and anyone who has run one knows it: half the tournament goes out at once in the round of sixteen.

Eight pairs out, with four matches played

Three group matches and the round of sixteen. Four in all, and home. They paid the same entry fee as the pair that reaches the final, and they leave mid-morning.

Four matches is not bad — it is the minimum the format guarantees — but they leave just as the tournament gets interesting.

The consolation draw: a whole second bracket

A consolation draw is not a farewell match. It is a complete bracket, only for the eight that lost in the round of sixteen: quarter-finals, semi-finals and a final, with its own champion.

Eight pairs, seven matches, exactly the same structure as the main draw. It runs in parallel, and at the end of the day there are two trophy ceremonies instead of one.

A consolation draw is not a consolation match: it is a whole bracket with its own champion. Eight pairs, seven matches.

The full count

Forty-six instead of thirty-nine: seven more matches. That is the exact price, and it is worth having in front of you before deciding, because seven matches are court hours you have to actually have.

What do those seven matches buy you?

This is what really changes, and it is not the total: it is what each pair plays.

Without a consolation draw, a pair knocked out in the round of sixteen plays four matches. With one, that same pair can play seven — the same as the tournament champion.

And the tournament minimum rises from four to five: even a pair that loses in the round of sixteen and then loses its first consolation match goes home with five matches played.

How many matches each pair plays

The cost is court time, and it is a club decision

We do not present the consolation draw as an obvious improvement, because it is not. It is seven more matches to fit into the schedule, and that means courts, time and people running it.

If you have the hours, it is one of the things that shows up most in how a social tournament feels: half the entrants stop leaving mid-morning. If you do not, a thirty-nine-match tournament with a minimum of four is still a good tournament.

What we would not do is improvise it on the day. The consolation draw is announced with the rest of the format, before the first entry, because it changes what people are buying when they sign up.

If you are coming from the other two formats

This article is a sibling of two others and does not repeat them. The twelve-pair one explains the table, the tie-breaks and the preliminary round; the sixteen-pair one explains why that number is comfortable and how the round of sixteen is crossed without repeating pairs from the same group.

Here you only get the decision to add the second draw and what it costs. It is one format, not the only one.