A ladder competition is an ongoing format. There is no fixed schedule and there are no rounds: participants challenge each other, play whenever it suits them and climb or drop on the ranking based on their results. Ideal for a competition that runs all season long without you as an administrator having to schedule any matches.
The ladder works for padel, tennis and pickleball. You can choose between playing in pairs (two players form a team) or individually (each player stands alone on the ladder).
How challenging works
Players can send a challenge themselves from their profile on the club page. They pick an opponent, optionally suggest a date and add a message, and the challenged team automatically receives an email. As an administrator you can also create and manage challenges yourself under the Challenges tab in the dashboard.
Every challenge moves through a status: open, accepted, declined or cancelled. A challenge is an agreement to play. You enter the result separately afterwards under Matches. This keeps making the arrangement and recording the score independent of each other.
Limiting challenges
In the ladder settings you can set a limit on the number of positions above you that a team may challenge. If you set it to 3, for example, a team may only challenge opponents who are at most three places higher. Leave the field empty and anyone may challenge anyone.
The ranking and points
The ranking is updated automatically as soon as you enter a result. Teams are ranked by points: a won match earns 3 points, a lost match 0. When points are equal, the average DSS rating serves as the tiebreaker. In the table you see each team's number of matches played, won, lost, the points and the rating.
When entering a result you provide the sets and games per team. There must always be a winner: a draw is not possible in the ladder. You can read more about this in Entering scores.
Ratings adjust automatically
After every match you enter, Slams automatically adjusts the DSS rating of the players involved. Winning lowers your rating (on the KNLTB scale, lower is better), losing raises it. The team rating is the average of both players. If you want a ladder that does not adjust ratings, you can set the competition as unrated. For exactly how the calculation works, see The DSS rating explained.
Getting started
New to this format? Start with Creating your first ladder competition and then add players and teams. Still unsure whether the ladder fits your club? Take a look at Choosing the right format or the overview page with all formats.
