Planning your Courtside Ladder

How does the ladder module work?

Ladders are the most effective way of giving your members an organized match, at their level and on their schedule. Forget the counter intuitive ladders of the past, our ladders let your members go online, challenge a player, set up their game, play it, score it and immediately watch their name move on the ladder based on the results. This also takes the organizer out of the mix in setting up matches and keeping scores and results current, create the ladder, invite your members and the rest is up to them.

Ladders are one of our revenue streams on Courtside. There is a $3 per player registration fee that we charge you before the ladder begins. You will want to build the $3 fee into what you charge your players. If you want to make $20 per player then you will need to charge $23 for your ladder. if you are not charging your members you will still need to pay the fee.

Here is a great solution to get the kids in your lessons playing more. Take everyone from your lesson and have them join the ladder then at the end of each lesson tell each player who they must challenge and play before the next week's lesson.

What's on the ladder page?

The first thing to show up will be the list of players, a challenge link and a Player Info link. On the right will be boxes for each match that has been agreed to with the name of the players, the date and time they are playing and the status of the match. On the left is The Racquet a place for the organizer and players to communicate and is only visible to you and them. If you are not the organizer or a player that space is filled with the rules for your league.

Points Ladders-how they works

Points Ladders are the most exciting ladder format that we offer. Players get immediate gratification whether they win or lose and it creates a constant energy that has players moving from the bottom to the top by beating the best player.

The 39 Point Ladder - best 2 out of 3 sets (3rd set tie break is optional for players)

Why 39 points? The total number of games possible in a 2 out of 3 set match is 39 (7/6 6/7 7/6).

If the winner of the match is ranked higher on the ladder when the match is played, they will receive 39 pts minus the number of games they lost. The loser of the match will receive the games they won, added to their total points

Example of higher ranked player winning
Milos wins the match, beats Andy 6/2 6/3
Milos receives 39(win bonus) minus 5 (games lost) adding 34 points to his total
Andy receives 5 points (games won) adding 5 points to his total

If the winner of the match is is ranked lower on the ladder then their opponent the total points that their opponent has at the time of the match is added to their score plus 39 pts for the win, minus any games lost. The loser keeps their total points plus the games they won.

Example of the lower ranked player winning
Milos has 50 pts and Andy has 100 at the time of the challenge and Milos wins 7/5/3/6 6/4
Milos total points becomes 100 plus 39 pts (win bonus) minus the games he lost 12 (5+3+4) adding 27 points for a point total of 127
Andy keeps his 100 plus the 12 games that he won for a point total of 112

The database does all the calculations based on the scores that are added and as you can see based on these closely played match these 2 players are now positioned properly on the ladder.

The 17 Point Ladder (pro set) - This system requires you to play a pro set, and awards 17 points minus the loser's games. A pro set is won by winning 8 games with a margin of 2 or more games with a tie-breaker played at 8-all.  Deuces are to be played out.

Example 1:
Jane wins, beating John 8-6
Jane had 15 points, John had 34 points
Jane now has 34 + 17 - 6 = 45 points
John now has 34 + 6 = 40 points

Example 2:
Jane wins John 9-8
Jane had 23 points, John had 14 points
Jane now has 23 + 17 - 8 = 32 points
John now has 14 + 8 = 22 points

Switching and Sliding Ladders

We also offer 2 of the more traditional ladders Switching and Sliding. The Switching ladder has the winner and the loser switching places on the ladder and the Sliding ladder has the winner take the losers place and everyone pushes down on the ladder

Challenging and entering scores work the same on all the ladders and the ladder results are determined by the scores that are entered.

Creating the Registration Form

Go to the Ladders tab and click on Create New Ladder. Fill out the form which includes

Ladder name- most effective naming should include gender, format and level

Start/End and Register by dates- you can go in and change these dates up until the moment you are about to begin but once the ladder starts you cannot change the dates. We allow a maximum of 12 weeks (3 months) per rotation. If you want to let people join your ladder after the start date, set the Register By date to a few weeks past the start of your ladder. This will keep the register and payment online features open but you can manually add anyone to your ladder at any point

Payment Policy- you have the option of adding online payment to your registration with either the paypal or bill my club account options.

Paypal payment required- must pay into your paypal account.

Paypal or club account required- player can choose either option

Online payment not required- offers the option of paying via paypal or paying the organizer

No online payment- your member sees no fee associated with the ladder

Cost per player- enter this as 00.00. if you are not charging your members leave empty

Email address of paypal- if you are using paypal enter the email address that you used to create the paypal account so that the registration fees will go directly into your account.

Ladder- choose the type of ladder

Challenge Range- you can determine how many positions up a player can challenge. If you use the Points ladder leave the range at No Limit since the results are determined by games won.

Scoring Method- choose from 3 sets, pro set, 8 or 6 game pro set

Format- singles, doubles or triple doubles. Triple doubles lets you add 2 additional players to a doubles team so that they can sub in for the team or play as a group

Level- set the level of ladder 2.5, 3.0, 4.0 or define it in a range 3.5-4.0

Cool off days- this lets you control how often a player can challenge the same player

League Description and Rules- add the rules of your league and what your expectations are for your players.

There are no programmed rules for the ladder so any rule that you want to add, for example, if you refuse 5 or more challenges you will be kicked off the ladder, you will have to monitor your players to enforce that rule

Inviting players to join the ladder

When you hit the submit button on your registration create form, your ladder will be placed on the homepage of your website in the Programs box located below the gallery. Any program open for registration is listed at the top of the box and when registration closes it moves down a level to current programs. Go to your Members tab on Admin and invite the applicable groups to join your ladder. Players must have a Courtside account and if they do not have an account they will be prompted to create their account. Instruct your players to go to the Club page and click on the register link to join the program. They will step through the registration process based on your requirements when you created the form. Once they complete the registration they will show up in your Ladder Admin tab under Players and will receive an email confirmation and a message on their HomeCourt.

Players can connect to the ladder page by going to their HomeCourt and clicking on the My Matches tab.

Ladder Admin

Once you create the ladder you are in full control of managing it. click on the name of the ladder under the ladder tab and that will take you to your ladder. Running along the top is a blue navigation bar with the word Admin.

Settings- you can change the registration form up until you are ready to start. If you want to delete the ladder you will need to remove any player that is listed before you can delete the ladder

Players- as players join your ladder they will show up here. you can also search the database and add the a player to the ladder without them going through the registration process.

If you are running a points ladder and want to create start order for your players, just add points to each box next to their name, if not leave it empty and the players will be listed in the order they signed up.  Switching and Sliding will need a number added to the box to get your players into the correct order.

All Challenges- this page lets you monitor the challenges being made, add scores to matches that have been played and delete matches that need to be canceled.

Enter Match- you can set up a match between 2 players without them going thru the challenge process. If you are running a ladder that you set the weekly match ups  this is how you would do it

Deleting a ladder- if you create a ladder and then decide not to use it before you have paid for it, remove any player that you have listed on the ladder and that will enable the Delete ladder button

How do players challenge

On each player's Homecourt they have a direct link to the ladder under the My Matches tab. When they are logged in and go to the ladder it will display the word Challenge next to the name of any player they are eligible to challenge based on the criteria you set.

The player clicks on the challenge link and a Challenge invitation appears. It asks the player to select up to 3 dates and times they are available and where they would like to play the match if they are not at the same club/court. The challenge is sent and the opponent has 3 options, accept one of the times, suggest 3 new times or cancel the challenge. During this process, each message that is sent initiates an email alert to the email account each player used to create their Courtside account with.

If a date is agreed to the message confirming the date is sent to both players, their match is then displayed on the ladder board and added to their calendars on their Homecourt.

If the players cannot agree on a time they can cancel the match request and each player will be tagged with a denied challenge on their record.

How do players enter scores

When an challenge has been posted this creates a scorecard for each player. After the match the players can decide who will enter the scores or you can post a rule that says the winner posts the scores. The opponent will have 48 to confirm the scores and after that they will be auto confirmed by the database.

To post scores the players go to their Homecourt and there will be an alert button on their My Matches indicating that scores need to be posted. They click on link and enter the scores, select the winner and submit. If you are playing 3 sets it is up to you if you want them to play a full 3rd set or a super tie break. If they choose super tie break the scores are entered as 1/0 in the match box and that will open up the tie break box where they add the tie break score ex: 10/4

As the organizer you can go into any match and enter or correct scores by going to your Ladder Admin and All Matches.