Each match will follow this format:
- Team matches are composed of four 21-point games (women’s doubles, men’s doubles, and then two games of mixed doubles)
- Home/Away team will be determined before match begins by a coin flip. The winning team will elect to choose the option of selecting serve or receive at the start of each game for that Match, OR choosing which end to start on, OR the option of being the Home Team or Away Team for that Match.
Example: Team 1 calls Heads, the coin shows Heads
Team 1 chooses to be Home Team
Team 2 chooses to receive
Team 1 chooses to start on north end of court
- When it's time to play Mixed Doubles, the Home Team will choose its mixed doubles teams AFTER hearing the Away Team's partners.
Game Format
- Games will be RALLY scoring to 21, win by 2. A point is earned after every rally, whether it was won by the serving or receiving team. However, the first team to reach 20 points "freezes" (reverts back to the traditional format by scoring only on its serve). The second team will continue rally scoring until it reaches 18. So when the score becomes 20-18, both teams will freeze. If the score reaches 19-19, both teams will freeze as well.
- Players will switch ends when a team reaches 11 points. When switching ends, teams will have a 1-minute break.
- Players do not switch sides after winning points. Players will choose if they want to play the Even side or Odd side for the game, and players will serve based on if they have an Even or Odd score (similar to Singles play).
- Players may switch Odd/Even sides during a time-out or when changing ends, and they must inform the other team of the change.
- Teams are allotted only 1, 1-minute time-out per game.
- Teams will start on the end of the court where their teammates ended the previous game (i.e. women end south side, men start on south side)
- If the match is 3-0, the tournament director will use discretion to decide if the fourth match will be played. Don't worry though! There will be a loser's bracket.
Tie Breaker
- If after the 4 games, the series is tied 2-2, the 5th game will be a Dreambreaker Doubles game. This game will go to 21, win by 2, with rally scoring
- The Home team will disclose its lineup first to the Away team before the game begins. The Women will play the first 4 rallies of the game. The Men will then play the next 4 rallies. The first Mixed partners will play the next 4 rallies, followed by the remaining Mixed partners. The same rotation will continue until a team wins the game.
- IF we are behind schedule, the tournament director can use discretion to adjust the tiebreaker game format.
Loser's Bracket
- Games in Loser's Bracket will follow the Tie Breaker game format. Only 1 game will be played to move to the next round.
- The winning team of the loser's bracket will play in the Gold/Silver match.
- For those teams who lose 1st round and in Loser's Bracket will have time to play other full matches against other losing teams.
