Tournament Info

Arrival & Admin

Arrive & register by putting your name in the box that corresponds to your team's letter in your respective division. This can be done any time before your first game is scheduled to start.

The admin table will have bananas, biscuits & squash available.

Recording Your Scores

You’ll need to write your score for every game onto the sheets on the admin tables. To keep to the schedule through your playoffs, the sheet must be complete immediately after your last game.

Not writing your scores makes scheduling the play-offs difficult, and teams with missing scores will be worse off for not recording their scores accurately – gaps go down as losses, and you’re responsible for your own row of scores.

You put your score on your row, under your opponent’s letter.

Please always be aware of when & where your next game is to be played.

Playoffs for ALL

There are always playoffs for everyone, for a position/ranking throughout the whole division.

Please don't leave after the group stage round robin, as there are more games and opponents hoping to continue playing.

These are often the best/closest games of the day, as they're against teams with a similar record in the group round robin.

Schedule Checking

The schedule for all divisions is attached as a Word document in an email all players receive in the week leading up to the respective tournament (late Monday evening, almost every time).

Please make sure you read the document well in advance of the weekend.

Please also check that your entries are as you expect.

Any requests for changes need to be emailed in by 16:00 on the Wednesday before the event starts, or it becomes impossible to make edits to the schedule.

Any queries over the schedule need to be resolved before we reach the weekend. On the day it is too late for anything to be changed due to the knock-on effects of any (even tiny) edit.

It is vital that you know when & where your games are scheduled before arriving, but also check the sheet on the day for any changes (injury dropouts, court switches, etc.)

Being in the wrong place at the wrong time will cause an 11-0 loss in any match missed.

Knowing Start & Finish Times In Advance

Every event is scheduled from scratch once closed, to avoid long wait times and fit everything into the court time efficiently.

The specific schedule for the group stage comes out by email to all players on the Monday evening before the event.

This doesn't show the playoffs, but you'll generally be done within 2 hours of the last group game time.

It's not possible to specify start times further in advance due to this depending on the sizes of the various divisions playing through the day, and how this fits into the court time.

Tie-breakers for division rankings

Every point scored and conceded can matter for the playoffs.

Depending on division size, your first playoff opponent could be influenced by whether your loss points (points scored when you have lost a match) are higher or lower than other teams in your division.

Group rank is decided by: Wins, Loss Points, Head to Head, Coin Toss.

Courtesy

We are all sharing these wonderful venues, so considerate behaviour is vital for everyone to enjoy the day.

Please keep the immediate courtside space and walkways free of clutter.

Only water in clear containers can be carried onto the courts; the surface must be protected, and pickleball must maintain a good reputation with tennis venues for us to be able to play competitively on the nicest surfaces.

DUPR

We're entering the End of 2025 Event data from Nottingham into DUPR and will use this experience to decide on whether 2026 will be submitted to DUPR.

Division entries tolerate +0.49 on the division title rating, so up to 3.49 in 3.0-, up to 3.99 in 3.5, etc.

Some players enter a 'different' division in good faith, due to a low reliability rating on their temporarily inaccurate DUPR rating - this is tolerable when that context applies.

Some players may see their DUPR change to no longer fit a division they entered appropriately at the time - this is also tolerable, but moving players to the new 'right' division will be done where possible without inconveniencing the schedules of other players.

Sneaky rec play wrecks the schedule.

If you ‘sneak’ onto a court, the scheduled players will not ask you to move, and you’ll ruin the schedule for many other players – please use your scheduled courts for your tournament games and let others do the same.

Making Calls (& Not From Off Court)

Players not participating in a game are not to make any line calls or other input on decisions.

Matches without a referee are decided by a system of 'call your own lines' & an expectation that all players will play fairly & honourably.

Keeping to the Schedule

It is vital that you read and know your schedule before arrival.

The schedule must be kept or finals won’t be played before we lose the hall when the centre closes. Unfortunately, due to this, there are a few draconian rules that must be followed to ensure the day can run smoothly and enough game time is available for everyone.

Only walk onto a court you are scheduled to play on. Anyone occupying a scheduled court to knock up or play a rec game is ruining the day for others, as this will prevent the schedule from being completed before we lose the hall. Please be considerate and stay mindful of this throughout the day.
Knocking up time is 6 minutes for your first game of the day if you haven’t been able to get onto a court beforehand and 2 minutes for all other games.
If either player from a team is not on court within six minutes of the scheduled start time, they forfeit the match. If a player arrives late to a match, no knock-up time will be afforded; straight in.
20 minutes is plenty for one standard scoring game to 11, win by one. If slow scoring causes a game to overrun past the allocated 20-minute game slot, players will be required to leave the court with that current score sitting as the match result. Players for the next game will be courtside waiting to play by this point. Waiting players can notify an ongoing game that their time is up after one minute of their court time and then allow two more rallies to be played before assuming the court for their scheduled match. All disputes come to the admin table where the rule will largely be “stick to the schedule".
Once a game is concluded, the court belongs to the players scheduled on court next. If you want extra knocking-up time, be at your allocated court several minutes before your game is due to start. Don’t use the neighbouring court to knock up; that belongs to the players scheduled on it.

Everyone benefits from the tournament schedule being kept.

Knocking-up for too long will see games left unfinished when the court time ends.

Lost Property Is Not Lost, They'll Be Back For It

We won't accept any lost property being handed in, as players will return to where they left it. Having your stuff moved is inconvenient.

Queries

If you have any questions before the weekend, please give us a shout using the steve@pickleb.co.uk email address.

If you need to inform us of anything related to the schedule, this must be done in good time (usually the Tuesday/Wednesday) before the respective tournament you are attending.

If your partner has withdrawn last minute, we are happy for you to replace them with someone suitable for the respective division you have entered, but please let us know beforehand, if possible.