Pickleball tournament software and live scoring

Pickleball tournaments are organised around brackets rather than a single open draw. Events are men's and women's doubles, mixed doubles and singles, and each is usually split by skill level and by age, for example an open bracket, several rated levels and senior age groups. A weekend tournament can hold dozens of brackets on the same set of courts.

Zeetius Tournaments gives each bracket its own entries, eligibility and draw while keeping one record per player. A player entered in both mixed doubles and gender doubles appears once, so the scheduler can see both sets of matches and avoid putting them on court at the same time.

Players enrol and pay online on a listing page built for the event. Doubles partners enter together, and each bracket's skill and age rules are set by the organiser, so the event can follow whichever rating system or age bands your club or association uses.

• Doubles first. Gender doubles and mixed doubles brackets, with partners entered as one team.
• Skill brackets. Rated levels and an open bracket, with the rating rules set by the organiser.
• Age brackets. Junior and senior age groups alongside the open events, each with its own draw.

Traditional pickleball uses side-out scoring. Only the serving team can win a point, games are commonly played to 11 and won by two, and some events play to 15 or 21. In doubles both partners serve before the serve passes to the other team, except at the start of the game, when the first serving team has only one server. The score is called as three numbers: the serving team's score, the receiving team's score and the server number.

Rally scoring, where a point is won on every rally whoever serves, is also used in a number of pickleball competitions. Because both systems are in use, Zeetius treats the scoring format as configurable for each event: side-out or rally scoring, the points target, the winning margin and the number of games in a match.

Arena by Zeetius captures each rally on the Umpire Assist tablet app. Under side-out scoring the app keeps track of the serving team, the first or second server and the three-number call, so the referee records only who won the rally. Each point is published to /live/livescore as it happens, and finished matches move to /live/results and update the bracket on /live/draws.

• Side-out scoring. Points only on serve, with the second-server rule and the first-server exception at the start of each game.
• Rally scoring. A point on every rally, for events that use rally-point formats.
• Configurable games. Points target, winning margin and match length set per bracket and round.

As pickleball grows, clubs and associations need the same administration as older racquet sports: member registration, sanctioned events, rankings and qualified officials. Zeetius Federation keeps one record for each player, club and official, with renewals, transfers and payments handled online.

Results from sanctioned tournaments can feed ranking lists directly, and certificates are generated for every participant from the results. An association can publish its calendar, draws and rankings on its own website without retyping any of it.

Zeetius Academy supports coaching programmes with batches, attendance, assessments and fees, so an academy can see which players are progressing and which need attention. Players and parents looking for a coach or a venue can find them in the Zeetius Sports Directory.