Ladder Competition System

(presented by KNLTB, The Netherlands)

What is a Ladder system?

This format sees all players placed in a ladder, one on top of the other. Players challenge each other. If a player lower down the ladder beats a higher placed player, they change places – the lower, winning player moving up the ladder.

Organiser tips

COURTS AND PLAYERS: A maximum of 20 players per ladder is recommended. If more than 20 players, create a Division 1 Ladder and a Division 2 Ladder.

SCORING: Choose a scoring format. Best of 3 tiebreak sets works well. Players score their own matches.

SCORESHEETS: A ladder is displayed in the club showing all the player names, when players win a match against somebody above them – they switch places on the ladder. (See next page for diagram). Use a notice board or purpose made ladder.

Activity

ORDER OF PLAY: The organiser should set a start and finish date for the ladder, giving at least 3-4 months in time. Eg start on 1 May 2007 and finish on 1 September 2007. Players must organise with other players to play matches in their own time. Players challenge each other in order to move up the ladder:

20th-15th place can challenge players a maximum of 4 places above them, 15th - 5th placed players can challenge players 3 places above and 4th-1st can challenge 2 places above.

Players should not refuse a challenge from a player below, if players continue to refuse challenges or are unable to play matches – remove them from the ladder and move all players below, up 1 place.

AT THE END: The winner is the person at the top of the ladder on the finish date the organiser set. If running a number of ladders, you could have top 3 players in each promoted and the bottom 3 relegated.

Adapt the Format

Many formats can easily be adapted to suit players aged under 10, mixed ages, teams and to be a more or less competitive event.

Download ‘ADAPTING COMPETITION’ for a quick and easy guide to adapting this format to suit your needs.

Themes

Many competitions are more fun and easier to promote if they have a theme such as Davis Cup, Olympics or Family Day attached.

Download ‘ADDING THEMES’ for ideas.

Sample Ladder

Here Sebastian beats Andy and Marat beats Tim, so they swap places. If Sebastian has lost to Andy, they would both have stayed in the same place.

Another rule is that you can only challenge players who are within a certain amount of places of you (see page 1 – your position determines how many places you can challenge above). Here 10th placed Robby could challenge 3 places above, meaning he could challenge Lleyton but not Guillermo.