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How to run a padel knockout tournament
A year-end knockout needs three answers before the first serve: who plays whom, on which court, and when. This guide works through 11 pairs, 5 byes and a full two-court schedule, with the seeding rules behind each choice.
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Why a knockout suits the year-end week
Between 27 December and 3 January most clubs see more visitors, relatives and once-a-year players than at any other time. A knockout gives that week a clear shape: everyone plays on the opening evening, the field halves every round, and the final has a fixed time that people can plan their day around.
A knockout keeps each pair together and ends with one winning pair. That is different from an Americano, where partners change every round and each player scores on their own. If your group wants to rotate partners, the Americano schedule generator covers that. This guide is for pairs who enter together and play to win.
The price of the format is that a pair that loses is out. Clubs soften that with a consolation bracket, covered further down, so that nobody travels to the court for a single match.
Step 1: count the pairs and find the bracket size
A single-elimination bracket always has a power-of-two number of places: 4, 8, 16 or 32. If your entry sits between two sizes, the bracket rounds up and every empty place becomes a bye. A pair with a bye goes straight into the next round without playing.
Two numbers are worth memorising. The number of byes is the bracket size minus the number of pairs. The number of matches is always the number of pairs minus one, because every match removes exactly one pair and one pair is left at the end. Byes cost no court time.
| Pairs | Bracket places | Byes | First-round matches | Matches in total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | 8 | 3 | 1 | 4 |
| 6 | 8 | 2 | 2 | 5 |
| 8 | 8 | 0 | 4 | 7 |
| 9 | 16 | 7 | 1 | 8 |
| 11 | 16 | 5 | 3 | 10 |
| 16 | 16 | 0 | 8 | 15 |
| 17 | 32 | 15 | 1 | 16 |
| 32 | 32 | 0 | 16 | 31 |
The tool takes 4 to 32 pairs. Past 32 pairs the schedule needs more courts than most clubs have for one evening, so split the field into two divisions instead.
Enter your pairs and get the draw and the schedule in one step.
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Seeding rules that keep the draw fair
Seeding ranks the strongest pairs so they do not knock each other out in round one. The rules below are the ones the bracket maker applies. They follow the standard seed grid used in knockout events.
- Rank by strength, best first. Seed 1 is the pair most likely to win. Use last year's result, a club ladder or the organiser's judgement, and agree it before the draw.
- Seed as many pairs as you can rank with confidence. You can seed only the top 2, 4 or 8. Every other pair is drawn at random into the open places.
- Seeds 1 and 2 sit in opposite halves. They can only meet in the final. Seeds 3 and 4 go to the other two quarters of the bracket, so the top four can only meet from the semi-finals on.
- A seed meets the lowest remaining seed. In a full bracket seed s plays seed (places + 1 - s) in round one: 1 v 16, 8 v 9, 4 v 13 and so on.
- Byes go to the top seeds first. With 5 byes, seeds 1 to 5 skip round one. A bye is the reward for the higher seeding.
- Unseeded draws are random, byes included. If nobody is seeded, the draw decides who gets the byes, and the result is repeatable only if you keep the saved copy.
Organiser tip, not a rule
Publish the seed list before the day. Disputes about ranking are far easier to settle on a Tuesday than at the desk at 6 pm.
In the tool, type #1, #2 and so on after a pair's name. Two pairs cannot share a seed, and a seed higher than the number of pairs is rejected with a message that names the line.
Worked example: 11 pairs, 5 byes
Eleven pairs enter, all seeded. The bracket rounds up to 16 places, so 16 - 11 = 5 byes, and seeds 1 to 5 receive them. Only three first-round matches are needed, and the whole event takes 10 matches.
Seeds 1 to 5 are Mia & Leo, Sam & Ivy, Kai & Noor, Ana & Bo and Eli & Zoe. They wait in round two. In round one, Jon & Ada play Pia & Gus, Ravi & Tess play Ola & Fay, and Max & Uma play Dev & Rue.
| Round | Matches | Who plays |
|---|---|---|
| Round of 16 | 3 | Seed 8 v 9, seed 7 v 10 and seed 6 v 11. Seeds 1 to 5 have a bye. |
| Quarter-finals | 4 | Seed 1 v winner of 8 v 9, seed 4 v seed 5, seed 2 v winner of 7 v 10, seed 3 v winner of 6 v 11. |
| Semi-finals | 2 | Top half winners meet, bottom half winners meet. |
| Final | 1 | The two semi-final winners. |
Seeds 4 and 5 meet in a quarter-final even though both have a bye. That is the seed grid doing its job: the two pairs rated just below the top three face each other, and the winner then has to beat a top-half seed in the semi-final.
The schedule: two courts, 17:00 start
The inputs are two courts, 45-minute matches and a 15-minute break, with the first match at 17:00. The break is the changeover on each court and the least rest any pair gets between its own matches.
The scheduler works through the matches in bracket order. Each match goes on the first free court, and it can start only when both of its earlier matches have ended and the break has passed. The final is placed last.
| Match | Start | Court | Round | Pairs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 17:00 | 1 | Round of 16 1 | Jon & Ada v Pia & Gus |
| 2 | 17:00 | 2 | Round of 16 2 | Ravi & Tess v Ola & Fay |
| 3 | 18:00 | 1 | Round of 16 3 | Max & Uma v Dev & Rue |
| 4 | 18:00 | 2 | Quarter-final 2 | Ana & Bo v Eli & Zoe |
| 5 | 19:00 | 1 | Quarter-final 1 | Mia & Leo v Winner of match 1 |
| 6 | 19:00 | 2 | Quarter-final 3 | Sam & Ivy v Winner of match 2 |
| 7 | 20:00 | 1 | Quarter-final 4 | Kai & Noor v Winner of match 3 |
| 8 | 20:00 | 2 | Semi-final 1 | Winner of match 5 v Winner of match 4 |
| 9 | 21:00 | 1 | Semi-final 2 | Winner of match 6 v Winner of match 7 |
| 10 | 22:00 | 2 | Final | Winner of match 8 v Winner of match 9 |
Matches 1 and 2 run together at 17:00. Match 3 and the 4 v 5 quarter-final share 18:00. The semi-finals sit at 20:00 and 21:00, and the final starts at 22:00 and ends at 22:45. Each later match waits for its winners, shown here as "winner of match N", and the bracket fills in the real names as results come in.
Add a third court and the same draw finishes at 21:45, with the final at 21:00. All three round-one matches start together at 17:00, and the quarter-finals fit into two slots.
Late finishes
Start the same draw at 20:00 on two courts and the final would begin at 01:00 the next day. The bracket maker shows times past midnight with the following date and adds a note with the number of courts that would finish before 00:00, so you can change the plan before you publish it.
Try your own courts, match length and start time.
Rest between matches
A schedule is only fair if each pair gets time to recover. The bracket maker enforces a minimum gap, equal to your break, between the end of one match and the start of the next for the same pair. It checks this along every path a pair could take through the bracket, not just the first match.
In the example the shortest gap is 15 minutes, between quarter-final 1 and the first semi-final. A pair that plays two rounds back to back, such as a quarter-final followed by a semi-final, gets exactly that quarter of an hour. Pairs with a longer wait get more.
Byes help too. Seeds 1 and 2 do not play until 19:00 and seed 3 until 20:00, so those pairs can arrive later while the lower seeds play the opening matches. Tell every pair its first match time and its court when you publish the draw.
Organiser tip, not a rule
Ten minutes is the shortest break we would use for a pair. Below that, the tool shows a warning, because players need time for water, a grip change and a short warm-up before the next match.
Adding a consolation bracket
With a consolation bracket, pairs that lose their first match drop into a second bracket and play on. When the draw has byes, the pairs knocked out in round two drop as well, because a pair with a bye has not played yet when it loses its first match.
For the 11-pair draw that means 3 round-one losers plus 4 quarter-final losers, 7 pairs in all. The consolation bracket takes 6 more matches, so the whole event is 16 matches, and every pair plays at least 2. The tool names the rounds correctly: consolation semi-finals and a consolation final, or a third-place match when only 4 pairs enter.
The price is court time. On two courts from 17:00 the 16 matches run eight slots and the main final begins at 00:00, after midnight. A third court brings it back to 22:00, with the last match ending at 22:45. If you can only give two courts, choose single elimination or start earlier.
The tool places the consolation entrants so that no first consolation match repeats a match from the main bracket, which keeps the second chance from feeling like a replay.
Running the night
Print the bracket for the wall and the score-entry sheet for the desk. The sheet lists every match in order with the time, the court, both pairs and boxes for three sets, so the person at the desk can write results as they come. A blank match score sheet works for the court itself.
Agree the scoring before round one. Many clubs play golden point, where one deciding point wins the game at 40-40, and some play a single set or a timed match to keep to the schedule. Whatever you choose, the match length you enter in the tool must be long enough for it. A match that runs over pushes every later match back.
On screen, pick the winner of each match in the schedule table. The next round fills in with real names, and a dot marks the winner in the bracket. Tick "Save results on this device" if you want the bracket to survive a closed tab. Nothing is sent anywhere, and "Clear results and saved copy" wipes it. Download CSV gives one row per match for a spreadsheet.
If two entries share a name, the tool lists the second as "Name (2)" so the schedule and the results stay unambiguous.
Checklist before you publish the draw
- Count the pairs and confirm the bracket size and the number of byes.
- Agree and publish the seed list, even if only the top four are seeded.
- Set the courts you can really book, the match length that fits your scoring and a break of at least 10 minutes, ideally 15.
- Check the last match start against your court booking and against midnight.
- Print the bracket and the score-entry sheet, and send each pair its first match time and court.
- Decide in advance who records results and where late arrivals report.
When the numbers are ready, draw the bracket and print it.
Seeds, byes, courts and a printable sheet.
More for the tournament
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