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's Format card, under Matchmaking, 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 players and courts

A queue runs with as few players as one game needs — 4 for doubles, 2 for singles. Four players on one court get paired up and play game after game.

What the number of players changes is variety. The queue draws from whoever is waiting, so if every player is on a court, the group that walks off is the only group available to fill it, and they play the same people again. The more people waiting, the more the pairings mix.

With fixed partners or a blind draw, the queue deals teams, so a game needs two teams and only your opponents change. Two teams on one court play each other every game, which still works. An odd number of players leaves one without a partner, and they aren't drawn until they have one.

The form tells you how it looks as you set it up. For the most variety, leave one full game's worth of players waiting: with 4 courts in a doubles event that's 20 players rather than 16. Fewer than that still works; players just meet the same people more often.

Waiting for every court

Under Matchmaking, tick Wait for every court to finish before drawing the next games to change when the queue draws.

Normally a court is refilled the moment its game is approved. With this on, the queue holds off until every court's game is finished and approved, then draws every court at once from everyone available.

That suits a small group. With 9 players on 2 courts, the ordinary queue mostly sends the four who just came off a court straight back on together. Waiting for both courts mixes the whole group every time, so players meet more different partners and opponents, and still only one player sits out each round. The cost is a little time: a group that finishes early waits for the other court.

You can switch it on or off on Edit while the event is running; switching it off fills any empty court straight away. While the queue is waiting, the Live View says the next games start when every court is free, and Control Center → Courts shows the same note instead of Fill open courts. Players who sit out are still drawn first next time, because whoever has played the fewest games always goes first.

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.

Whether everyone finishes on the same number of games depends on the format and on how many play. Every game uses the same number of places — four players in a drawn doubles game, two teams in a fixed-partner game, two players in singles — so the total has to share out evenly.

If you don't know how many will turn up, pick a target that works for any number:

Format	Targets that always come out level
Doubles, Partner Switch	4, 8 or 12
Doubles, fixed partners or blind draw	any even number (2, 4, 6 …)
Doubles, split into two groups	any even number, as long as both groups are the same size
Singles	any even number (2, 4, 6 …)

If you know the field, more numbers work:

Format	Players	Targets that come out level
Partner Switch	8, 12, 16 … (a multiple of 4)	any number
Partner Switch	6, 10, 14 … (even, not a multiple of 4)	any even number
Partner Switch	an odd number	4, 8 or 12
Fixed partners or blind draw	an even number of teams	any number
Fixed partners or blind draw	an odd number of teams	any even number
Singles	an even number	any number
Singles	an odd number	any even number

Fill in Max participants and the form does this for you: as you type a target it says whether that field finishes level, and if not, which nearby numbers do. Pick something else and a few players finish one game short.

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, then pick an even target.

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.

With Wait for every court on, the button stays hidden while games are still going: the new court is drawn along with the rest once every game has finished.

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 (none while the queue is waiting for every 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 once anyone has checked in. 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 nobody has checked in yet, 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.