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New Tournament Features

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Take a look at what's new with Tournaments!

Choose from the links below to learn about the tournament features added in a specific release.   Then to learn more about a feature, click the link below each description. 

You can also attend a Tournament webinar for a demo.  Click here for the schedule.

 

Tournament Features by Release Date
August 3, 2022 September 17th, 2021
June 28, 2022 August 25th, 2021
May 17, 2022 July 22nd, 2021
April 12, 2022  
March 3rd, 2022  
February 3rd, 2022  
October 14th, 2021  

 

Release on August 3, 2022

  • Restrict the Movement of Players in Consolation Draws in Sanctioned Events
    • Consolation movement or players will now be limited to establish alignment with the Junior & Adult Tournament Regulations and Friend at Court for sanctioned events in Tournament Desk.
    • Learn More: Swapping Players in Consolation Draw

  • Tournament Desk Enhancements
    • Clock Scheduling Tool - Tournament Directors will have the ability to type in match time directly or use the clock feature to schedule matches manually on the draw.
    • Order of Play for Players View - Tournament Directors now have the ability to publish the order of play on the public website from Tournament Desk. 
    • Changes made to Schedule Tab in Tournament Desk to default to the current date. Tournament Desk will now default the schedule tab to the current date and selected facility. It will work as described below: 
      • Default is the first day of the tournament if the current date is before the first date of the tournament
      • Default is the current date if the tournament is in progress
      • The last date of the tournament if the tournament is completed

      If the Tournament Director changes the date of the tournament and navigates to a different page when they return the date should not be reset to default.

    • Enhancement to Player Profiles within Tournament Desk - Design and interaction updates to the player's profile, which will now enable Tournament Director to be able to email or phone (depending if how you are viewing the tournament and have call enabled) from Tournament Desk. 
    • Public Draw Setting - Show Preview - Public draw display settings will show a preview of how chosen draw settings would display.
  • WTN PLAY and WTN Seeding/Selection
    • WTN Play | Enforce Registration restriction website note. A message has been added under the enforce registration restriction toggle to explain to tournament directors that anyone can register for the tournament if the toggle has been turned off regardless of the WTN range or age bands. They are also encouraged to add a note on the tournament website to clarify even if the tournament has a restricted age and WTN range.
    • WTN showing on public draws. From this release the Tournament Director will be able to show the WTN of players on the public draws.
  • Team Events Enhancements
    • Team Events, Team Player Selection - Ability to add a capacity to All Team Events.  In Serve Tennis, the ability to select which players enter the main draw or alternate players list in the Team Tournament.
    • WTN Team Events - Tournament Directors can view the strength of a team using a team average WTN total.  The decision to use average instead of cumulative was decided because of the use case of teams having unequal number of players.
    • Team Dual Match Winner Criteria - Tournament directors have the ability to choose different options to calculate collection value (i.e. match won, game, set or allocate one point for more than one match won). 
    • Team Event - Ability to add tie-breaker match in the event of a tie-break for teams.  This tie-breaker match would not be counted towards rankings or ratings.

 

Release on June 28, 2022

  • WTN Play  

    •  A new flexible tournament format called WTN Play has been added for tournament directors nationwide. WTN Play gives Tournament Directors the utmost flexibility in running creative level-based play events where they can create customizable divisions where they will have control of the age range and WTN rating range for their divisions and can also control if registration validation rules will be enforced. This format gives tournament directors the tools to create draws with evenly-matched opponents to ensure the best possible experience on court for all players. If you would like to use WTN Play and you don't see the option, please reach out to your section or district to access this new format. 

  • WTN enhancements in Serve Tennis and Tournament Desk
    • Tournament Directors will now be able to pull the latest WTN values for seeding and grouping in the tournament desk in the events tab. They will be able to click on an “Apply update” button and if it's a singles event it will display singles WTN and if it's a doubles event it will display the doubles WTN. Both data points can be hidden or unhidden in the column selector.

  • Learn more: Manual and Automatic Seeding

    • Tournament Directors will have the ability to select, seed and group players based on their ITF World Tennis Number (WTN) and confidence level.
      If the TD uses WTN for seeding, selection or grouping then the players will be sorted into the following bands:
      First all players who have a confidence level >=70% THEN
      Players with a confidence level between 40% and 60% THEN
      Players with a confidence level between <= 30%
      Please note that within the bands the players will be sorted on the back end using the WTN 2 decimal point value.

    • ITF World Tennis Number (WTN) of players will be complemented with a confidence level color coded check mark in Serve Tennis and their player profile. 

    • Tournament directors will have the ability to control showing the ITF World Tennis Number (WTN) values on public draws and will be able to view WTNs on the admin draws in the tournament desk. Public draw settings and admin draw settings will have unique logic of what is displayed.

    • Add WTN to Player Selection Criteria Options
  • Voluntary Consolation draw format for Sanctioned Tournaments Draws -The voluntary consolation draws have been updated to be in compliance with FAC regulations* to ensure that only players who have lost in the 1st round, advanced to the second round via a bye or advanced to the third round via double-bye can be added to a voluntary consolation draw.

    When a VC draw is enabled by your section/district staff in level configuration in Serve Control, there will be a Voluntary consolation option in the draw type. This will need to be enabled prior to player selection is completed.

    Learn more: Voluntary Consolation Draw

  • Tournament Search Improvements 
    • The tournament search was improved so that if users add a space characters in the keyword search section
    • In order to distinguish between WTN Play events and other tournaments. Customers will be able to filter for WTN Play events in the level filter on the tournament search. They will also be able to see the WTN logo on the search results and tournaments details page for WTN Play Events.

  • Team Event Enhancements
    • The team format Brewer Cup has been removed from the options.
    • When using the WTN for Team Events - the WTN rating associated with the team will be the average WTN for all players in that team. 

Release on May 17, 2022

  • Team Event Enhancements
    • Ability to edit a match collection's score format and collection name in the scorecard template.  Saved changes apply only to matches in the draw that do not have any scores entered.
    • Addition of the “Reset Scores“ button on the scorecard to be able to delete all scores entered and leave the player's names populated.
    • The scorecard of the default Team events templates is updated to use ‘Male’ and ‘Female’ instead of ‘Boys’ ‘Girls’ or ‘Men’ ‘Women’ . (i. e. Female Doubles, Male Singles, Female Singles)
    • Ability to view the Team name each player has been selected for on the public website.
    • Ability to view the selection status of teams in Dominant Duo events on the public website.
    • Ability to set entry limits for Dominant Duo team events
    • Ability to complete the selection of dominant duo teams for the main draw or alternate list for Dominant Duo Team Tournaments in the tournament admin area/Serve Tennis. Currently all teams are pushed to the tournament desk then promoted to the main draw. This enhancement will give tournament directors the ability to complete the selection of dominant duo teams for the main draw or alternate list for Dominant Duo Team Tournaments in the tournament admin area/Serve Tennis.
  • Score Entry Option Change
    • To be in compliance with FAC regulations, a new score entry category was added called “Withdrawal” for players who withdraw after the draw has been made and before play begins.
  • Doubles Registration- Looking for Partner Enhancements
    • Enhancements in My Tournaments include setting player status as "looking for a partner" removing yourself from the available players list, selecting an available partner and the ability to email players and tournament directors. 
    • Add Partner to Download Report in Serve Tennis, if a player has been paired, his/her/their partner name will appear in the 'Doubles partner' column, the same way as it appears in a doubles event. 

  • Application for Doubles teams
    • As requested by Tournament Directors, a new enhancement has been made in the tournament application for a doubles event, you will now enter the maximum number of doubles teams to be selected in the draws. i.e if you want a draw of 32 teams, you would enter 32 in the Number of doubles teams selected in the draw section of the application. Previously it would have been 64 players.
  •    SafePlay Compliance with Player Communication
      The Center for SafeSport requires notification of our Safe Play Policy to all tournament participants for our tournaments. To be in compliance with the center for safesport, we updated player selection emails.

Release on April 12, 2022

  • Filter Players by Entry Status in Tournament Desk
    • In the participants tab in Tournament Desk - Tournament directors can now filter players by their entry status ( Selected, Alternate, Unpaired & Withdrawn). This is useful for communication, i.e. if you want to send a text message to only the selected players and not alternates or withdrawn players.
    • Learn more: Sending an SMS in Tournament Desk

  • Move players within Split/ Flighted draws
    • You can now remove players and add a player to a flighted draw after the draw has been made.
    • Learn more: Split Draws

  • Team Tournaments
    • Whether you are running an exciting dominant duo, college themed dual matches or you want to create a custom team event the new team tournament functionality in Serve Tennis will help you run and manage your team tournament. We have 7 new articles on Team Tournaments below.
    • Learn more: Team Tournaments


Release on March 3rd, 2022

  • Public Draw Settings
    • You can now set what is seen in the public draws, you can choose if you want additional player information to show below each player name on public draws, i.e. City/State, Team or  Country.
    • Learn more: Create & Publish A Draw

  • Publish Public Seeds
    • When player selections are completed, you can now publish the seeds on the public view. To do this head to the Entries tab on Tournament Desk and when you have completed your seeding, you can choose to publish seeds.
    • Learn more: Manual and Automatic Seeding

 

Release on February 3rd, 2022

  • Player Selection
    • Tournament Directors will now have the ability to have a manual option from the event creation. This will reflect in the player selection screen in Serve Tennis where it will default to Top-Ranking.
    • Learn more: Player Selection

  • Tournament Desk/ Draw redesign
    • The newly designed draws have been implemented in both the public area and admin areas of tournament desk. We have updated the articles to show the design differences and user experience. However, the previous functionality remains the same. We have added a new article for you to share with players if they are struggling to read the draws.
    • Learn more: Viewing Tournaments and Draws

  • Score Entry/Match Status
  • Payout Reports (soft launch)
    • Tournament Directors can now see and download payout reports as well as the tournament transaction reports. To access the payout reports you will need to change the payout schedule to an automatic payout, so it would be paid out weekly. If you are interested in changing your payout schedule, please reach out to customer care and we will be able to do this for you until this functionality is provided. 
    • In addition, the following defects were fixed in this release: 
      • Move Times/rain delay feature when the SMS showing old schedule time is now showing the correct times in SMS
      • Fixed the defect of event playoffs generating different views
      • Fixed the defect that erased players who advanced from a double walkover after refreshing page
      • Ensure match reports and matches tab show matches in the same order.
    • Learn more: Transaction Report for Payments-Tournaments 

 

Release on October 14th, 2021

  • Doubles Registration
    • Players will now enter the USTA number of their doubles partner after registering for the tournament. Their partner will have to confirm the pairing by entering the USTA number of the partner. This can be managed through the player’s schedule on USTA.com as well.
    • Learn more: Inviting a Doubles Partner/Accepting a Doubles Partner

 

Release on September 17th, 2021

  • Accessing Player Profile Information
    • Anywhere in Tournament Desk that you see a player’s name, you will now be able to open the player’s profile to view their contact information. Previously this was only available in the player’s tab. 
  • Print All Draws
    • From the events tab in Tournament Desk, you can select any or all of the events in your tournament to print on a single pdf. You may also save this PDF to your computer through the print draw feature.
    • Learn more: Print Tournament Draws

  • Move Match Times
    • Also known as the Rain Delay feature. Within the Tournament Desk schedule tab, you can select any or all of the upcoming matches and click on Move times to move all upcoming matches by a set amount of time.
    • Learn more: Moving Match Times

  • Change Stripe Account
    • If the Stripe account that you selected for your tournament is no longer the one you wish to receive money in, you can change which Stripe account your tournament is connected to in the Settings tab of the tournament module on Serve Tennis.
    • Learn more: Changing the Tournament Settings

 

Release on August 25th, 2021

  • Doubles Teams on Player Lists
  • Picking a Doubles Partner
  • Mixed Event Selection & Seeding

 

Release on July 22nd, 2021

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