Brackets

For me, the single hardest task of a tournament director is forming the brackets.  In an ideal scenario, a bracket in our format (discussed in a separate post) would consist of 7 teams of the same skill level and within 5-10 years of age from youngest to oldest.  But last year’s tournament showed how unrealistic this scenario is.  We had only four 5.0 teams, two of which were in their 20’s and two of which were 50+.  We also had only one 2.5 team and three 3.0 teams.  In that situation, we merged the younger 5.0 teams with younger 4.5 teams and did the same with the older teams. We also merged the 2.5 and 3.0 teams together.

But last year we had to abide strictly by USAPA bracketing rules as a sanctioned tournament.  We have a little more flexibility this year.  We intend to be guided again by our “competitive and fair” theme.  Our principles will include separating skill level and age groups wherever reasonable.  We are thinking that 50 years of age is an appropriate break point to start the age bracket separation.  In other words, players of 50+ years would be bracketed together and players under 50 would be bracketed together.  This would be subject to further separation if sufficient numbers of similarly-aged teams were to register.

But we also believe that medals should be earned through competitive play.  They should not be won by default because only 1, 2, or 3 teams registered in an individual skill/age bracket.  Therefore, brackets of 4 teams or fewer will be combined with other age or skill levels in order to form a bracket of competitive size.  If your age/skill bracket looks small, I encourage you to recruit other teams to register.

You will note that there are brackets shown on our page on pickleballtournaments.com.  I hesitated to show that information because players tend to lock that into their minds as the final bracket.  The reality is that the system default brackets will only serve as a starting point for our final brackets.  It is highly likely that brackets will be combined or broken up in different ways.  Please rest assured that we will always do so with “competitive and fair” as our guiding principle.  As tournament players ourselves, we understand the importance of that concept.

Format

We have thought long and hard about tournament formats and have chosen to adopt “competitive and fair” as the theme. But what does this mean when it comes to implementation? Let’s try to address that while explaining our tournament format.

One of the most frequent complaints from tournament players is that they traveled long distances and paid big bucks for tournament registration and hotels … only to be eliminated in 2 matches. What a bummer. Some tournaments have tried to fix this by moving from a double elimination to a round robin format. While that can result in more play – depending on bracket size – it isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, either. The most competitive players seem to enjoy the opportunity to come back through the double elimination format.

Our format at Land of the Sky will attempt to mesh the best of both worlds. We will play a round robin in the morning from which the best-performing teams will move to a double elimination in the afternoon. In our ideal world, round robin pools will consist of 7 teams, meaning each team will get to play 6 games in the morning format. Then, the best-performing teams would advance to a 4-team double elimination medal round. The number of teams that advance will be dependent on the total number of teams in the bracket. If total teams in the bracket exceed 7, then they will be broken into pools.

Round Robin Rules

• Games will be played to 15 and win by 2 in order to meet USAPA guidelines.
• Total wins will determine the teams to advance.
• Tie-breakers will also use USAPA guidelines – head-to-head wins, total point differential of all games, head-to-head point differential, and point differential against the next highest team.
• If a team forfeits, the score of the game will be recorded as 15-0. If the forfeited game(s) impact the point differential tie-breaker(s), then all games played by the forfeiting team will be revised to 15-0.

Double Elimination Rules

• Standard USAPA rules will apply – 2/3 games to 11, win by 2 in the winners bracket and one game to 15, win by 2 in the losers bracket.

Balls

Discussions with other tournament players have given us a good idea of ball preferences. We have opted to use two balls at the Land of the Sky tournament. For the 4.5/5.0 brackets, the Dura Fast 40 will be used. The Onix Fuse will be used in all other brackets. Both are outdoor balls due to the tournament surface. Ball color will be yellow.