Queued play

Most events run a set schedule: you generate every match up front and play it through. Queued play works the way a lot of clubs actually run a social night — there's no schedule at all. Courts fill as they come free, and whoever just finished goes to the back of the queue.

Nobody has to know the running order in advance, latecomers can join without redoing anything, and the app decides who is up next each time a court opens.

The draw is not random. It keeps track of what has already happened, so it puts the players who have had fewest games on first, then prefers partners you haven't played with and opponents you haven't faced yet. In a doubles event with drawn partners that means you work your way through the room rather than drawing the same partner twice in an evening by chance.

Turning it on

On the event form, under Format, pick Queued play instead of Set schedule.

It's available for singles and doubles events running Round Robin or Round Robin + Bracket. Elimination formats need a fixed draw, and Crew Cup builds its rosters by hand, so neither offers it.

Your event still says what it is on every card and listing — the matchmaking mode refines the format rather than replacing it, so you'll see Round Robin · Queued play.

Doubles: drawn teams vs rotating partners

Queued play works with either kind of doubles event, and the difference matters.

With fixed partners or a blind draw, the teams are decided once and stay together all night. There is no schedule-generation step in a queued event, so draw or set those teams on the Roster tab before you start — use Draw teams for a blind draw, or Pair partners for fixed partners. Until the teams exist the queue has nobody it can draw, and the courts panel will tell you so.

With Partner Switch, there are no standing teams at all: partners are drawn fresh for each game, which is what the variety rules below are balancing.

How many courts you need

A queue only works if somebody is waiting. If every player is on a court, the group that walks off is the only group available to fill it — so they get put straight back on, often with the same partners.

The form tells you the ratio as you set it up. As a rule, leave one full match's worth of players waiting: with 4 courts in a doubles event you want at least 20 players, not 16.

Deciding when it ends

You have two ways to finish, and you can use either or both.

Games per player

Set Games per player on the event form and the queue stops drawing once everyone has had that many. The courts then empty out as the last games finish.

Leaving it blank is a perfectly good answer — plenty of clubs play until the bar closes and wind down with Last call instead.

Pick a multiple of the players per game and everyone finishes level — as long as you have enough players for your court count, as above. A game hands out exactly four player-games in doubles, or two in singles:

• Doubles — 4, 8 or 12 games each
• Singles — any even number

Pick something else and a few players may finish a game short, depending on turnout. The form says which case your number is in as you type it and suggests the nearest targets that always work.

Last call

While the event is running, Last call — even everyone up stops the queue drawing new games. It doesn't stop dead: anyone already on the target is finished, anyone behind gets one more game, and the event winds down as those finish.

It's reversible — Resume drawing games puts the queue back to work.

Split groups

If your event is split into two groups — mixed doubles, pro-am — every game takes two players from each group. That means the smaller group plays more games per person and reaches the target first, and the larger group can't catch up.

Only equal groups finish level here. No games-per-player target changes that, because the two halves always accumulate the same total. If you want everyone to finish on the same number, even the groups up.

Adding or removing a court mid-event

You can change the court count while a queued event is running — Edit the event and change Number of courts.

Taking a court out of play needs nothing else. The draw simply stops offering it, and the game already on it plays out normally.

Adding a court does need one tap. The draw only runs when the event starts and when a game finishes, so a court you open in the middle of a long game would sit empty until that game ends. On Control Center → Courts, tap Fill open courts and it draws games onto the free courts straight away.

It tells you what happened either way, including why it couldn't draw — not enough players free right now, everyone already playing, or everybody has finished their games. Those need different things from you, so it says which.

Calling off a match

Sometimes a game that has been drawn can't be played — somebody has stepped away, or a pair has decided they're done for the night.

On a queued event you cancel a match; you don't postpone it. Postponing means still owed, and a queued event has no fixed schedule to owe it back to, so there is nothing to come back to. Cancelling writes the game off, frees its court, and lets the draw carry on.

Cancelling asks who is stepping out of the draw, and at least one player must be. This is the part worth understanding: the draw deals the next game from the pool the moment a court frees up, so a cancel on its own hands those same players straight back and the next game can look much like the one you just called off. Sitting at least one of them out is what actually changes it.

You pick who. If only one person is leaving, tick just them and the rest go back into the draw as normal. Nobody is dropped from the event — a player who is sitting out keeps their place and can be put back in with one tap from Control Center → Courts, or from their own phone on My Event.

If you keep the same partner all event, sitting one player out keeps their partner out too — that's fixed partners, a blind draw and a seeded draw alike, because the draw deals those events as pairs. The Live View and the Courts tab both show the pair as sitting out, so it's clear why neither is being dealt in.

Partner Switch is the exception. There your partner changes every game, so you're effectively in the draw on your own and each player sits out individually.

You can cancel from the match page, from the scoring screen's menu, or from a court card on Control Center → Courts. A cancel can be undone — put the match back in play and it returns.

What players see

The Live View is the queue's main screen. It shows:

• On the Courts — every court, with the game on it. A court with a new game shows TAKE THIS COURT so the players know to walk over.
• Coming Up — who is next in line, with one match's worth highlighted per free court. If a games-per-player target is set, each player shows how far through they are.
• Standings — alongside the queue.

A court keeps showing its game while the score is being confirmed, so it doesn't go blank while players are still standing at it. The queue only refills once the match is approved.

Check-in and the queue

If you use player check-in, only checked-in players are drawn. That matters more here than anywhere else: a queue runs continuously off whoever is in the room, so drawing someone who went home puts a court out of action until somebody notices.

If you never open check-in, the whole roster is drawn from as normal.

How the draw picks

Each time a court frees up, the queue picks from everyone not currently playing, in this order:

1. Fewest games played — nobody gets left behind.
2. Partner variety — in a doubles event with drawn partners, you play with people you haven't partnered yet.
3. Opponent variety — then people you haven't faced.
4. Who has waited longest.

Fairness comes first, then variety. Where several options are equally good, the queue picks between them at random.

Late joiners are fine — they've played fewest games, so they come up quickly.

Feeding a bracket

A queued Round Robin + Bracket event uses the queue for the qualifying phase, then cuts to a bracket as usual. The games-per-player target is what decides when qualifying is done; standings from the queued games seed the bracket.

Watching the queue

The Courts tab of the Control Center shows every court, what is on it, and who is waiting to be drawn.