The questions people ask before they sign up
Short answers to the questions people ask most about SetMatcher. Under each answer you will find the page that explains it in more detail.
Free to sign up, and no card needed to play.
Before you have an account
What you can see without an account, which sports SetMatcher supports, how to join the group your club already runs, how to find players at your level, and which languages you can use it in.
- Do I need an account to look around?
No. Anyone can open a club’s page, a tournament page or a player’s page once it has been published, and you can read about how SetMatcher works without signing up. You need an account to do things like joining a group, entering a score or challenging someone, so SetMatcher knows who did it.
Read morePrivacy and what you control
- Which sports does SetMatcher support?
7: tennis, padel, pickleball, badminton, beach tennis, squash and table tennis. Each one has its own scoring, formats and words. A badminton game is not a tennis set, squash has no sets at all, and you are only offered the match formats your sport really plays.
Read moreScoring point by point
- My club already uses it. How do I get in?
There are three ways, and each starts with someone already inside: a link or QR code from whoever runs the group, a personal invitation sent to your email address, or a request you send to the committee yourself. A link that has expired or has been used up no longer works, so ask for a new one.
Read moreClubs and committees
- How can I find tennis players at my level to play with?
Use the player finder. It shows people around your level in your sport, from an even match to a stretch, in your town, region or country, and free at the same times of the week as you. Then challenge one of them. You can have 5 challenges waiting at once, only one per person, and if someone turns you down twice you cannot ask them again unless they challenge you.
Read moreFinding players and challenges
- Which languages can I use it in?
English, Dutch, German, Spanish, French and Turkish, with everything translated. The words also follow your sport, so what a badminton player calls a game and a tennis player calls a set is named correctly in all six languages.
The sport you play
Tennis players want to record matches and find opponents, padel friends want a ranking, and badminton, squash and table tennis clubs want rankings and leagues for their members. Here is how SetMatcher helps in each sport.
- What is a good app to record tennis matches and find other players?
SetMatcher does both. You record a match set by set in the ITF formats, including tie-break sets, an advantage final set, short sets and Fast4, and both tie-break scores are kept. Once your opponent confirms the score, it updates your rating for that discipline only. To find your next opponent, the player finder looks for people around your level.
Read moreTennisFinding players and challenges
- Is there an app where our group of padel friends can keep track of results and see who is the best?
Yes, and your group is where it happens. One of you enters the score, the other pair confirms it, and the group table updates with matches played, won and lost, sets, win percentage, each player’s rating and recent form, so who is best follows from the results. Every match is scored by the FIP rules, including the star point, and each pair counts as the average of its two players.
Read morePadelRatings and rankings
- How can we organise pickleball games and keep track of scores for our pickleball group?
Set up a group and keep all the games and scores in one place. A day of games can be a round robin, pool play leading to a playoff, or a bracket, planned onto your courts so nobody is due on two courts at once. Scores follow the USA Pickleball rulebook, with side-out or rally scoring and the server number, and the group table is built from scores both sides confirmed.
- I run a small badminton club. Which app can we use to keep a ranking of our members based on match results?
SetMatcher ranks your members on their results, so nobody has to do it by hand. The committee sees one ranking per sport across all the club’s groups, and a member who plays in two groups is listed once. The order comes from ratings, which only move on results both sides confirmed, and every game follows the BWF Laws. Members who share their rating only with the people they play are left off, and you can run a club ladder alongside it.
Read moreBadmintonClubs and committees
- Is there an app that knows beach tennis scoring, for recording matches and running small tournaments?
Yes. At forty-all one point decides the game in every format, so there is nothing to agree beforehand. A set goes to six games with a tie-break at six all, and tennis short sets and Fast4 are not accepted, so they cannot be entered by mistake. For small tournaments you get the ITF’s beach tennis draw formats, including the bonus draw for players beaten in the first round.
Read moreBeach tennisRunning a tournament
- What app can I use to run a squash league inside my club and record the results?
SetMatcher, which scores squash as squash rather than as tennis without sets. A club league can be a round robin, groups leading to a knockout, or a team league with a table your club decides how to count. Every result is saved as games to eleven with a two-point lead, with no sets, and counts once the other player confirms it. There is also a ladder for players who would rather challenge each other than wait for a fixture.
Read moreSquashCompetitions and leagues
- Which software can our table tennis club use to keep track of matches and player ratings?
SetMatcher keeps both together. Enter a match as the ITTF Handbook allows, the best of three, five, seven or nine games to eleven with a two-point lead, and once your opponent confirms it, the rating for singles, doubles or mixed doubles is updated. The club sees all its players in one ranking, you can run a team league on the same results, and the draw that places everyone is called a progressive knock-out, as the ITTF calls it.
Read moreTable tennisRatings and rankings
Entering a score
Keeping score while you play, who confirms a result before it counts, how your rating is calculated and where it starts, and what happens when a score needs to be corrected.
- Is there an app to keep score point by point during a padel match on my phone and show a live scoreboard?
Yes. Tap one of two big buttons for whoever won the rally, and SetMatcher works out whether that was a point, deuce or the end of a game. Undo takes back exactly the last tap, and your phone’s screen stays on during the match. You can share the live scoreboard as a link, up to 5 links per match. It shows the score but no profiles, and you can switch it off again.
Read moreScoring point by point
- Who decides that a score is right?
The other side. A score you enter waits until your opponent confirms it, and only confirmed scores change ratings, tables or draws. If nobody answers, it confirms itself after 72 hours, so an opponent who goes quiet cannot hold things up. If they say the score is wrong, it is put on hold until it has been sorted out.
Read moreRatings and rankings
- Is there an app that works out a rating for amateur players from their match results, like Elo, for racket sports?
Yes. SetMatcher calculates an Elo rating from the results both sides confirmed, in every sport it supports, and keeps a separate rating per sport and per discipline, so a tennis singles win never changes your squash rating. The gap between two ratings sets the odds, a big win counts a little more than a narrow one, and a match with a head start or a walkover changes nothing.
- What rating do I start with?
500, the same as everyone, because a first rating cannot be earned and a guess would be less fair than an equal start. Your results move it from there: the gap between you and your opponent sets the odds, and beating someone rated well above you is worth more than beating someone below you.
- Why does my rating say it is still provisional?
Because it has not seen enough of your matches yet. A rating settles over 15 matches, and until then it moves in bigger steps and is marked provisional. That is fairer than a confident-looking number based on two results, and it means new players quickly find their level.
- How is a rating for amateur tennis players worked out from match results, and why does a rating drop when you lose?
Every match starts as a prediction. Before it, the gap between the two ratings says how likely each side is to win. After it, whoever did better than expected takes points from whoever did worse. So losing to a stronger player costs you little, losing as the big favourite costs you most, and beating someone rated well above you earns a lot. The page on how the rating works goes through four real examples.
- I typed the score in wrong. Can it be fixed?
Yes. Correcting a result sends it back to the other side to confirm, and every rating calculated after that match is worked out again, so no table keeps a number based on the wrong score. You cannot enter a second result next to the first one, so always correct the original.
Running a club or a tournament
What SetMatcher does for a committee or an organiser: a tournament from entry list to final, the draw, the courts on the day, a team league, a ladder, and a club with its own member list.
- What software can we use to run a tennis tournament at our club, from entries to the final?
SetMatcher runs the whole tournament from one entry list. Add the entries yourself, or for singles share a link players use to sign up. Seeds follow the players’ ratings, the draw can be a knockout or any of the 9 formats your sport uses, the order of play is planned onto your courts, and each confirmed result moves the draw on, round by round, to the final. Publish the tournament and anyone can follow it on its own page.
Read moreRunning a tournament
- I need to make a draw for a badminton tournament with 20 players, with byes and a consolation draw. What tool can do that?
SetMatcher makes the draw from your entry list, and byes go to the top seeds automatically. What it will not add is a consolation draw: the BWF does not use one, so badminton is not offered one. If you want everyone to keep playing, choose a play-out instead, which places every player in a field of up to 64, or groups that lead into a knockout.
Read moreThe draw
- How do tournament organisers schedule matches onto courts on the day of a tournament and keep track of who is on which court?
SetMatcher plans the matches and the desk keeps track of them. Each court has opening hours for every day of the week, dates it is closed and one of 13 surfaces, and the order of play fits around all of that, with nobody on two courts at once and everyone getting their rest. On the day, the desk shows who is on which court, who is late and by how many minutes, and it keeps working if the connection drops.
Read moreTournament day and the desk
- How can we manage an interclub padel team league with divisions, fixtures and a standings table?
Set up a season with divisions ranked by strength. Each division has teams, which can come from different clubs, and each team has its own squad. Say what one team fixture is made of and the fixture list is made for you, with home and away balanced. Every match within a fixture has its own score confirmation, and the league table updates by itself, counted in whichever of the 6 ways your federation uses.
Read moreCompetitions and leagues
- What app can run a challenge ladder for our tennis club?
SetMatcher runs one. A ranking comes from your results, while on a ladder you move up by challenging the players above you. You can challenge up to 3 places above you, unless your club sets a different limit, and the place changes hands when the match is played. Your club can also decide that declining or ignoring a challenge costs a place, which keeps the top of the ladder active.
Read moreThe ladder
- What software do small racket sports clubs use to manage members and organise matches?
SetMatcher, for everything to do with playing. A club has a member list with its own membership types, everyone has one of 3 roles from member to owner, and the committee manages every group, tournament, league, court and desk the club owns. It is not a membership administration: it does not collect fees, and it only keeps track of your members’ matches and results.
Read moreClubs and committees
- Do I have to type our whole membership in?
No. The committee can import the member list as a file or as pasted text, up to 200 email addresses at a time. This sends invitations rather than creating accounts, so nobody is signed up without doing it themselves. Anyone who already has an account is matched to it instead of getting a second one.
Read moreClubs and committees
What it costs
What is free, what you pay for and what it costs, and how cancelling and refunds work. The figures are the same ones on the pricing page and in the terms of use.
- Is there a free app for keeping our club’s match results and rankings?
Yes, and it stays free. Playing, recording matches, ratings, groups of any size and a club member list of any size cost nothing, and every tournament, league, ladder and competition up to 16 entrants gets every tool. You pay for events bigger than that, including their tournament day at a venue, and for the extra statistics you get from scoring matches point by point.
Read moreClubs and committees
- What does it cost to run a tournament with forty players?
It depends on what the organiser picks. An event pass covers that one tournament at any size, with everything for the tournament day: courts and schedule, order of play, the desk, check-in, printouts and live scoreboards. You pay once for that event and it never expires. A club that runs several events a year can choose SetMatcher Club instead, which does the same for all the club’s groups. Either way the draw, results, table and the event’s public page stay free at any size.
Read moreRunning a tournament
- Do I have to pay a subscription to use the tennis app?
No. A subscription adds two things you can easily do without: running your own events above the free size in groups no club owns, and extra statistics from matches scored point by point, such as how you did on serve and return, big points won and saved, how a match turned, and how your rating moved against stronger, equal and weaker opponents. Everything else is free, and paying never changes a rating, a draw or a seeding.
Read moreRatings and rankings
- Can I cancel, and do I get my money back?
Yes to both. You cancel yourself, and your plan runs until the end of the period you already paid for. Within 14 days of a subscription’s first payment you get a full refund on request, whatever you agreed at checkout, and an event pass is fully refunded until the first result of that tournament is recorded. If a payment fails, you keep everything for two weeks before going back to Free, and nothing is ever deleted because a payment stopped.
Your privacy
Who can see your results, whether your name shows up in search engines, what happens to your data, and how to delete your account. Every setting starts private, and only you can change it.
- Who can see my results?
Whoever you choose, one setting at a time. There are 9 separate things you choose an audience for, and none of them start open to everyone. All players means everyone with a SetMatcher account, the people you play among, and never the whole internet.
Read morePrivacy and what you control
- Will my name come up in a search engine?
Not unless you put it there. Your profile only becomes public when you switch that on, and even then it only shows the parts you already opened to all players. When you appear on someone else’s public page, such as an entry list, a draw or a result, visitors without an account only see your first name and initial.
Read morePrivacy and what you control
- Is there a sports club app that does not share player data with advertisers, and what does it do about the GDPR?
No player data goes to advertisers: SetMatcher sends them nothing about you. Nothing from other companies loads unless you agree to it separately, so no analytics, not even fonts, and ads only if you say yes, which a paid plan removes. Under the GDPR you can download a copy of all your data or delete your account in a few taps. An account nobody signs in to for 1095 days is also deleted, after a warning.
Read morePrivacy and what you control
- Can I delete my account?
Yes, from your own settings, with your password and without contacting anyone. It waits 30 days first, in case you change your mind, and then everything is really deleted. Matches you played stay, because they are also your opponents’ matches, but you appear in them as a deleted player with nothing of yours attached.
Read morePrivacy and what you control
- What are the password rules?
Your password needs at least eight characters, and it must not be one that has shown up in a known data leak. There are no rules about capital letters or symbols. When you change your password, every session that was signed in with the old one is signed out.
Want more detail?
Each of these pages explains one part of SetMatcher in full, with the rules and numbers behind it.
- Privacy and what you controlNine privacy settings, private to start with, and no analytics.
- Scoring point by pointScore rally by rally in seven sports, undo mistakes and share a live scoreboard.
- Clubs and committeesMembers, a committee, your own logo and colours, and one owner.
- Finding players and challengesFind players by level, place and free time, then challenge one.
- Ratings and rankingsAn Elo rating per sport and discipline, settled after fifteen matches.
- Tournament day and the deskCourts, a planned day, and a desk that keeps going without wifi.
- Running a tournamentFrom entry list to final: the draw, the courts, printouts and results.
- Competitions and leaguesDivisions, team fixtures, line-ups, and a league table counted your way.
- The drawNine draw formats, and six of them give beaten players more matches.
- The ladderChallenge upwards, climb, and see every change in the history.
Your first match is one tap away.
Join a group, play, enter the score. The ladder, the draw and the season keep themselves up to date.