American Tournament 

What is an American tournament?

An American tournament is a round robin mixed doubles competition in which participants are initially paired at random. Timed rounds are played on a rotational basis, swapping partners between rounds, and there are small prizes for the players who win the most points overall. Any adult member or nominated junior can play in an American tournament irrespective of their playing level.

The rules

Initial Groupings

• Each player will be placed into one of 2 groups, i.e. Group X or Group Y. 
• For mixed doubles, women will be in Group X and men will be in Group Y
• 1 player from Group X will play with 1 player from Group Y. 
• Pairs will be drawn out randomly by the tournament referee. 
• Players from Group X can ONLY play with players from Group Y.
• Once all pairings have been drawn, the pairs will be allocated to a specific court. 

Game Play

• Each round of matches will start upon the direction of the tournament referee.
• All pairs will start at the same time and play for 15 minutes. 
• Players play as many games as they can in the allotted time.
• No advantage scoring. If the score reaches deuce, it’s a sudden death deuce with the receiver drawn from the same group as the server. So player X serves to receiver X.
• After 15 minutes, the match will finish at the signal of the tournament referee, but any uncompleted games MUST be finished.
• Score is level, then the pairs spin the racket or toss a coin to decide who stays on the court as winners).
• Winning Pair stay on the same court BUT are split up to either side of the court.
• Losing Pair will move to the next court,Court 1 moves to Court 2,  court 2 to court 3, Court 3 moves to court 4 and Court 4 to court 1.
• All losing players that move to another court  MUST split up to either side of the court, but still with the playing formation X + Y.
• The tournament referee keeps a score sheet of each player’s results, so each player must report back to the referee after each match. 
• The tournament referee will determine the number of rounds to be played.
• The two top scoring players in each group will compete in a final doubles playoff. 
• The tournament referees’ decision on any matter is FINAL