The tournament application (formally known as sanctioning) process is for approved Tournament Directors through Serve Tennis. Each USTA section will be determining when the tournament application process will be open, and you will be notified once it’s available in Serve Tennis. The application will be submitted to the section/district that your organization is linked to.
If you have not been invited to the Serve Tennis as a Tournament Director then please contact your Section and/or District USTA staff member to invite you. Contact details are available here: Section/District Contacts. This article can focuses on creating, completing and submitting a tournament application. For assistance with these areas, please continue below.
How Complete a Tournament Application
How to Submit a Tournament Application
How to Create a Team Tournament
How to Create a Tournament
To create a tournament application please follow these steps. You may also refer to the following videos for information: How To Submit a Tournament Application Introductory Overview (Video), How To Submit a Tournament Application Detailed Overview (Video).
- Visit usta.com/servetennis and click GET STARTED.
- Sign in to your USTA Account.
- Choose one of the sign in options, input your credentials, and sign in.
- If you've forgotten your USTA Account password, click here for instructions.
- Once logged in, click OPEN on the organization you would like to access for Serve Tennis.
- If you don't see the organization on the list, please reach out to the admin of the organization to add you to the organization.
- If you are the admin, please refer to Linking an Organization for Serve Tennis in order to connect the organization to your account.
- Once logged in, click the Tournament module within the admin area.
- Click on Add Tournament and choose the Junior, Adult, or Wheelchair category.
- Choose the WTN Play, Junior, Adult, or Wheelchair category and the tournament type/level.
- This will also provide information on the tournament application fee for each level.
Then you will choose the level of tournament, information on each level is shown, including the sanction fee and dates permitted.
Unsanctioned tournaments have no restrictions included and the results will not be counted for ranking purposes. If you would like to run a tournament for junior and adults, you will either run this as an unsanctioned event or as individual events.
- This will also provide information on the tournament application fee for each level.
- Choose the WTN Play, Junior, Adult, or Wheelchair category and the tournament type/level.
- If your Add tournament button is greyed out when you access the tournament module, you will need to set up your Stripe account before you can add a tournament.
- Click Set up a payment account to get started, and if you need assistance refer to Connecting to Stripe in the Tournaments Module. Once complete, you should be able to continue the steps below.
- Complete the tournament basic details.
- Enter the Tournament name, location and start date and time for the tournament.
- Test Tournament: Do not turn this on as it will keep the tournament hidden and prevent players from finding the tournament in USTA search. This option is there for Tournament Directors who want to test out tournament creation and for Section Staff and Support who are testing out new tournament features.
- If you turn this feature on by accident and have already submitted the tournament for approval, please reach out to your Section or to Customer Support to have the feature turned off.
- Complete the tournament registration date/time
- Add a tournament director to the tournament.
- To add a tournament director, start by typing in the name of the tournament director in to the search. If they are already listed as a tournament director at your venue they will have a green checkmark by their name.
- You can also search for an approved tournament director by clicking on Find USTA approved tournament director. If a tournament director is not a part of your club or organization, they will be sent an invite to join. You must choose someone who is Safe Play approved.
- To add a tournament director, start by typing in the name of the tournament director in to the search. If they are already listed as a tournament director at your venue they will have a green checkmark by their name.
- Add a Referee to the tournament.
- To add a referee at this point, click Find Referees, an overlay and list of available referees will show. Click Select on the referee you would like to add. You can add a referee at a later date via the Tournament Settings, this is available upto the time of player selection.
- The referee will be sent an invite to the tournament via email to accept or decline.
Please note: Referees will only have access to the tournament desk after the Tournament Director has finalized player selection and Tournament Desk is launched. For more information, please refer to the Accepting / Declining a Referee Invite and Access as a Referee process.
- The referee will be sent an invite to the tournament via email to accept or decline.
- To add a referee at this point, click Find Referees, an overlay and list of available referees will show. Click Select on the referee you would like to add. You can add a referee at a later date via the Tournament Settings, this is available upto the time of player selection.
- Complete the Payment section.
- Select which account you would like to receive payment to. You can have more than one bank account/Stripe Express account linked to your Serve Tennis account.
- Please note: This can be edited after submission but prior to Player Selections, please refer to Changing Payment Settings for a Tournament for more information.
- Select which account you would like to receive payment to. You can have more than one bank account/Stripe Express account linked to your Serve Tennis account.
- Review your tournament details and click Create tournament. A confirmation box will appear to say it has been saved.
- Once you have created the tournament, you will be able to come back to edit any details whilst it is the planning stage. Please refer to How to edit a tournament for more information.
-
Click Add events.
- Complete the divisions for the tournament.
- Choose any combination of gender, ages, and singles/doubles.
- Ball Color - for all events level 7 and above they will be yellow ball - you will only get the choice for other colors in the junior circuit.
- Click Add divisions
- Once you're satisfied with your divisions, click Continue.
- Please note: You will be able to come back to edit the events after you have saved, before you submit for approval during the planning stage. You will not be able to edit after the tournament has been submitted. If you need to edit your tournament after submitting it for approval, you will need to contact your section or district staff for assistance.
- Complete the Details section
- Fill out the start and end date, event check in, and price sections and click Continue. Each section is detailed below.
-
Start and End Date - Here you can add the date of the event. When creating the tournament, you added the dates of the tournament (start to finish), and here you will add the date of the event.
-
Depending on the level of the tournament, you may have more than one date. The dates have to be within the tournament range of dates. If your events are held on different dates you will need to create the events individually.
-
You can add more dates if your event is on non-consecutive days. i.e. The event will run on the Friday and then on Sunday.
-
- Fill out the start and end date, event check in, and price sections and click Continue. Each section is detailed below.
-
-
Event Check In - If you wish to have players check in prior to the event you can turn this on. The event check in feature is still in development, at present turning it on will not impact players if they check in or not.
- Free Event: Tick on if you would like the event to be free. When turned on, players will not be required to enter credit card information.
-
-
-
Price - Here you add the price the players will play. To work out how much to charge, please refer to this calculator.
-
- Complete the Draws section.
- Here you'll be able to edit the draw settings for the events you've chosen.
- Once complete, click Save.
- Once complete, click Save.
- Here you'll be able to edit the draw settings for the events you've chosen.
NOTE: For doubles events - when selecting the number of players in the draws - the number you enter is the number of doubles teams. i.e. if you want a 32 draw, you enter 32 in the Number of doubles teams selected in the draw.
- Review your your event details and click Submit.
- The tournament will still be in the planning stage, It will not submit the Tournament Application and you will be able to go back and edit the events while still in the planning stage.
How to Complete a Tournament Application
Once you've created your tournament, you can edit the tournament settings and must complete the tournament checklist before you can submit the Tournament Application. To get started follow the steps below.
- From your tournament menu, click Settings.
- Edit the tournament settings.
- Referee Settings - Here you can add a referee, please refer to the How to select a referee process for more information.
- Communication Settings - You can add or edit the communications email and telephone number for the tournament. This information will be displayed on the Tournament webpage and all tournament related emails. For more information refer to How to edit tournament contact details
- Ask additional registration question - You can add an additional question that must be completed by players during the registration process. For more information, please refer to How to add a question to Tournament Registration
- Payments - Here you can change which account you would like to use to receive payments for this tournament. Please refer to Changing Payment settings for Tournaments for more information.
- Once you are satisfied with these details click Save.
- Complete the tournament application checklist.
- Before the tournament application can be submitted you must complete the tournament application checklist. Please refer to the Tournament Application Checklist for more information.
How to Submit a Tournament Application
Once your tournament application is complete, you can submit the tournament for approval. To get started follow the steps below.
- After you have completed your tournament application checklist, click submit for approval.
- Once you submit, You can no longer edit your application.
- If you made a mistake with your application and have already submitted it, you must contact the section/district you have submitted to, and request they decline the application and change it to the planning stage.
- Once you submit, You can no longer edit your application.
- If the Submit for approval button is grayed out, you have not completed your checklist.
- Click on complete the checklist to see what is outstanding. Once you have completed the checklist click submit for approval.
- Review the Submit tournament message and click submit.
- Pay the Tournament Sanction Fee
- Enter your payment details and click Save Card.
- Your tournament has now been submitted and the pending approval banner will display on the tournament page.
- You will get a confirmation email that application has been sent and will also receive another when it is approved, or declined/request for changes by the section.
- Your tournament will automatically be published once approved and inline with the registration dates.
Please note: If you need to make edits to the tournament after it has been submitted, please reach out to your section/district staff for them to do this for you. You can not change the cost after the tournament is open for registration, so make sure this is correct.