Southlake Paddle Club - Our First Club Tournament

The tournament will be like nothing you’ve ever experienced! We hope you can join in on the fun as we compete in our very first SPC tournament. This tournament has the incredible potential and will only be open to members of the Southlake Paddle Club.

Here are the details;

Our first club tournament will be a team event and will be played over the entire month of October! We will need at least 48 players - 24 men and 24 women. That's only 26% of our club, so we shouldn't have any problem hitting this number. This tournament will mirror the Major League Pickleball format, which for most of our club will be something you've never seen before. Trust us, it's crazy good! 12 teams of 4 players each (two men and two women) will compete in 3 different pools/4 teams per pool. Each team in a pool will play each other 1 match.  1 match consists of 1 men's doubles game, 1 women's doubles game, and 2 mixed doubles games. If the match is tied 2-2, then a 5th tie-breaker game is played called the Dreambreaker. The Dreambreaker is an exciting full court singles game where players based on a predetermined rotation enter into the game every 4 total points (1-3, 4-0 , 2-2 = rotation of both players. Players will face the same opponent the entire game).  Whoever wins the coin-toss shows their 4-person line up first. The team that loses the coin-toss will then create a line up they feel will best match up to win the Dreambreaker.  Strategy is key in determining your best match ups. All pool play and brackets games will be played using rally scoring to 21, win by 1. Teams will be given up to 10 minutes to prep/strategize for the Dreambreaker!

Teams will be determined using the MLP prenumbered draft system (see diagram below).  Using this system is as fair as it can possibly be as we attempt to create a balance of skill sets on each team using this draft format.  In our first tournament, there will only be 48 active players (24 men/24 women) and up to 12 reserve players chosen (6 men/6 women). If you would rather be a reserve player due a challenging schedule, please type “reserve” in the notes on your sign up. Reserve players will only play on a fill in basis, but the chances are low that reserve players will play in this tournament. If you sign up to be an active player, there is a chance you may not play due to your overall ranking (ranking is explained below). You must be ranked in the top 24 men/24 women in order to be drafted and become an active player. Please do not let this discourage you as you won’t know if you’re in the top 24 until the teams are announced.

Match ups for mixed doubles and the Dreambreaker will ultimately be made by the team captain - the highest ranking member of the team. It is recommended that you work together as a team to determine your match ups so your entire team has buy in on these decisions.

After your 3 matches of pool play, the bottom 6 teams will be eliminated from the tournament based on a team’s game win/loss percentage. The remaining 6 teams will move on to bracket play. If 2 teams have the same wining percentage, the head-to-head winner of the match between those 2 teams will determine which team advances. If the number of matches won is equal for 3+ teams, the following will break the tie in order of application: (a) Head-to-Head record, (b) if Head-to Head does not resolve the tie, then net games won, which is the number of doubles and mixed doubles games won minus the number of doubles and mixed double games lost (excludes Dreambreaker because not all matches will get to a Dreambreaker), (c) if the net games calculation does not resolve the tie, then we’ll move on to a win/played points differential percentage, which is the number of points won in all double and mixed doubles game divided by the number of points played in all doubles and mixed doubles games (excludes Dreambreaker because not all matches will get to a Dreambreaker) and (d) if none of the above resolve the tie, then the tie shall be resolved by a random drawing.

All pool play games will be played on flexible dates based on when all 8 players can come together and play. Team captains (the highest ranking players on each team) will coordinate game times/days for their teams. We will attempt the majority of our pool play games at Lifetime in Keller/Alliance if that is convenient for each team. Pool play games can be played anywhere, anytime. The top 2 teams from the 6 remaining after pool play, based on the the criteria set above, will receive a bye skipping the quarterfinal and jumping to the semi-final. The remaining 4 teams play in 2 quarterfinal matches, then the winners advance to the semifinals and play in the Final 4. The Final 4 will all be played at the same venue and the Semi-final will both start at the same time. The Final will start no later than 15 minutes following the semi-final. The semi-final and finals will be held near the end of October.  Quarterfinals, semifinals and finals will be played in Southlake under the lights with plenty of fanfare!  Here is the schedule of play:

Pool Play - October 1st - October 16th (18 Matches/12 Teams)

Quarter Finals - October 17th - October 23rd (2 Matches/4 Teams)

Semi Finals/Final - October 24th - October 31st (3 Matches/4 Teams)

Once registration closes at midnight on Monday, September 26th, each of the 20-30 tournament committee members will anonymously rate each player using a 1-5 system (1 being the highest) based on personal experience playing with, against or observing play.  Tournament committee members will not rank players who they have not seen play. All ratings will then be averaged to create the actual ranked list (1-24 for men and 1-24 for women) that will be used for the prenumbered draft system used by the MLP (see diagram below). If there are ties in the 1-24 ranking, the leadership committee will break all ties. Final rankings will never become public or shared by the leadership committee - guaranteed. Tournament committee members will not see player rankings from any other tournament committee members. The tournament committee will complete the 1-5 rankings using an anonymous MailChimp Survey Link that is un-trackable. The leadership committee will not participate in the initial ranking of players, this will only be done by the tournament committee unless there is a tie.

What does it cost? There will be NO tournament fees, but if teams decide to play at Lifetime there will be a $12.50 fee per player for 2 hours of play. We estimate all matches should end within 2 hours.

Here is the question!

Do you want in? We need all interested players to register by midnight on September 26th, so we can rank, draft and create our 12 teams. We will announce teams no later than Sunday, October 2nd and we will begin pool play the week of October 3rd. If you are interested, please click HERE to sign up on SignUpGenius. Every player must sign up individually. Please do not worry about dates and times of play. All team captains will work together to determine play dates and times that work for all 8 players involved in each match. Once all 4 players are drafted, each team will come up with a name for their team. The entire tournament has 18 total matches. The winning team will only play 5-6 matches over a month and teams that don’t make it out of pool play will only play 3 matches.  So, we should have no problem working with everyone's schedule to get in all matches.

If this format is a success, and we have no reason to believe it won't be, our club will run this tournament format 2-4 times a year.

Please sign up right away on SignUpGenius so we can get this awesome tournament off the ground. If you want to see the professional version of this tournament click HERE for last month's MLP Newport Beach Final. They explain the rules 5 minutes and 40 seconds in...Let's Go!