Background

Pickleball Tournaments are made needlessly complex (and lengthy) because tournaments must be organized by skill level AND age categories.  Further delays are caused by a service point scoring system instead of a rally point system (used by most other racquet sports).

A Call to Action

It is time to bring pickleball tournaments up to modern standards by:

1. Eliminating “skill levels” and use age categories only.
2. Adopting a rally point system.
3. Use a ranking system for seeding and/or entering tournaments.

 

Eliminating “skill levels” and use age categories only.

Age based events (singles, doubles, and mixed doubles) could be grouped based on a five (5) year differential.  For example:

• Under 20
• 20 to 24
• 25 to 29
• 30 to 34
• 35 to 39
• 40 to 44
• 45 to 49
• 50 to 54
• 55 to 59
• 60 to 64
• 65 to 70
• 70 and over.

Older players may play “down”.  For example, a 50 year old may opt to play in the 20 to 24 category (good luck), but a 20 to 24 year old cannot play “up” in a 50 to 54 category.   Ultimately, tournament organizers could decide on age brackets or even allow "open" tournaments to accommodate all ages.

 

Adopting a rally point system

A match would be based on the best of three games to 15, or possibly 21 – the cap could be decided by the various Pickleball associations (provincial/state or national), based on a rally point system.  This will reduce match times and allow more “best of three” matches to be played (depending on the format of a tournament, i.e.: waterfall events, round robin, double elimination, triple elimination, etc.).

 

Use a ranking system for seeding and/or entering tournaments

“Rankings” would be used only to seed tournament draws and/or for tournament entry requirements.

A player’s “rank” is based on a simple points system that adds up players results in the previous 52 weeks.  For example, in a tournament, points are awarded depending on “how deep” a player (or team) wins in a tournament.  For example:

• Round of 128  =>  10 points
• Round of 64  =>  45 points
• Round of 32  =>  90 points
• Round of 16  =>  180 points
• Quarter Finals  =>  360 points
• Semi Finals  =>  720 points
• Finals  =>  1200 points
• Winner  =>  2000 points

The number of points awarded could be made tournament dependent based on the tournament level.  For example, a city-wide tournament would award less points than a provincial or state level tournament.  National and International tournaments would award more points.

Tournaments could be made “open” or could be “restricted” based on a minimum ranking requirement.  An “open” tournament would allow any player or team to register regardless of their ranking.   A “restricted” tournament would require a player or team to have a specific minimum ranking to register, for example, a ranking of 500 points or more might be required to enter a provincial or state level tournament.  The reverse may also work, some tournaments would be restricted to players (or teams) with a ranking LESS than a certain maximum (for "beginner" or "intermediate" tournaments).  Ultimately, tournament organizers could decide on entry requirements based on rankings.

It's time to modernize Pickleball tournament play -- Send the link below:

https://www.change.org/ModernizePickleball

to your local, province, state or national Pickleball office or association and ask that they in turn, send the link to all of their members so we (the players) can vote on these positive changes to our sport.

Thank-you and Pickle-On !!