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Ladder Format (L2040 or L3060)

Play no-ad for 20 (L2040) or 30 (L3060) minute sessions. 
After each session a whistle will blow. 
The players that are ahead move up a court and losers move down. 
For the next round players split up so they aren't partners. 

If you  win on the  top   of the ladder you stay but you split with your partner. 
If you lose on the bottom of the ladder you stay but you split with your partner.

You can request to have the same partner all evening.
But please make this request before you start playing.
Don't wait until you find a partner you win with. 

Before they get their promised "at least two hours of tennis":
With L2040 nobody will have more than one 40-minute sit-out.
With L3060 nobody will have more than one 60-minute sit-out.

Should courts be renumbered. .
. . .to cut down on distance travelled between sessions?

We tried the Ladder Format at the Nov 21 Social.
One cause of confusion at this Knucklehead Social 
was that the coordinator changed the numbering of 
the courts without telling everybody.
Proposed numbering of courts:

(Crossed out numbers are the normal Fairland Numbers)

court #	A L	court #
6 4	L	5 3
4 5	E	3 2
2 6	Y	1
	door	window

Dealing with players that want the same partner
and players that are willing to split partners:

1) The simplest solution is for players that are willing to split
should keep the same partner when they are to play a team that
wants to play together all evening.

2) Same as 1) but players may negotiate with other courts as
To who should play with who.

3) Complicated. Try to come up with a plan so those willing 
To split don't play with the same partner too often.

Let's say 6 of the 12 teams want the same partner.
Let's put them on the 3 courts on the top of the ladder.
After the first round there won't be a problem 
with the first 2 courts because there will only be
teams that want the same partner. The same with the bottom 
2 courts because there will only be teams that are willing 
to split. There will be a problem with courts 3 and 4 because
a team that wants to stay as a team will have to drop to court 
3 and play with a team that should split. The solution that I
propose is that one of the winners that is supposed to advance 
from 4 to 3 should stay on 4 but the other winner should advance to 3.
And one winner from court 5 should advance to court 4 but the
other court #5 winner should advance all the way to court #3.

But I guess it gets even more complicated after round 2.
Maybe we need two or three non-players watching the matches so they 
Can anticipate what will happen the next round. They can ask player
to move so there is a variety of who plays who. This can be done
for Pairs as well as Splitters. For example Pair1 plays Pair2
on court 1. Let's say Pair2 loses and goes to courts 2. Then Pair2 
wins round 2 and Pair1 wins again. Pair1 will play Pair2 again.
Maybe they don't mind. But perhaps Pair1 should swap with one of
The teams on court #2 so there is more variety.


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