Running a tournament from scratch

This guide starts with the tournament still in your head and ends with the last pair reading their time on their phone. It is written for whoever runs the tournament at the club, not for whoever writes the code.

Before you start: what to have ready

Half an hour of preparation here saves the whole Saturday. What you need gathered:

• The courts you can use, and the hours play is possible on each one each day. The entire calendar comes out of this. If the tournament runs across two clubs, every court carries its venue.
• The categories you are opening, with their cap and their price. A large tournament reaches fourteen without breaking a sweat.
• The pairs, if you already have them: first and last name of each player and their category. The phone number is what identifies a player from one tournament to the next; ask for it.
• The poster, if there is one: JPG, PNG or WEBP, portrait if you can. It is what shows up when someone pastes the link into WhatsApp.
• The sponsors, in JPG, PNG or WEBP. SVG is not accepted.

1 · Signing in

You sign in at /login with the club account. That account belongs to the owner and can do everything: create tournaments, edit the club profile, see the money.

For the day itself there is a second way in, and it is worth using: desk access. From the club panel, under *“Perfil del club → Mesa de control”* (Club profile → Match desk), you give access to whoever will be sitting at the desk on Saturday. That person gets the tournament control desk and can enter scores, but not the club panel and not the payments. On Monday you take it back from the same place.

2 · Creating the tournament

“Panel de club → Torneos → Nuevo torneo” (Club panel → Tournaments → New tournament). The wizard has five steps: “General”, “Categorías” (Categories), “Canchas y horarios” (Courts and hours), “Registro de parejas” (Pair registration) and “Revisión” (Review).

2.1 General

Name, start and end dates, poster and description. One choice here conditions everything else:

• Full tournament — the platform handles registrations, groups, draw, schedule, payment and results. This is the normal one.
• Listing only — the information is published and nothing else; registrations run outside, over WhatsApp or wherever you run them today. Useful for announcing someone else's tournament, or for trying this out without committing.

If you have already run a similar tournament there is no need to start from nothing: in the tournament list, “Duplicar” (Duplicate) copies categories, courts, sponsors and rules, and you only change the dates and the name.

2.2 Categories

One entry per real category in the tournament. They go in all at once, picking the format and the categories:

Varonil:  1ra  2da  3ra  4ta  5ta
Femenil:  1ra  2da  3ra  4ta  5ta
Mixto:    A    B    C    D

For each one you set the cap (minimum and maximum pairs), the price, a members' price if there is one, and the prize, in cash or in kind. Later, under “Ajustes → Juego” (Settings → Play), you can tune the draw format of each category: groups of three or of four, how many go through, and whether the draw is a fixed size (8, 16). Leave it alone and the platform decides on its own with the pairs it ends up with.

2.3 Courts and hours

You add the courts and, for each one, the window play is possible in on each day of the week, or a specific date if one day is different. A real two-week tournament:

The whole calendar comes out of this, so it should say what is true and not what you would like: if a court has lessons on weekday mornings, do not mark it available. If the tournament is split between two clubs, each court carries the name of its venue, and that is how it reaches the players' schedule.

2.4 Pair registration

This step can be skipped: the usual thing is to publish the tournament and let the pairs register themselves from the link. If you already have the list, there are two ways, and they mix.

By hand, pair by pair. *“Inscribir pareja”* (Register a pair): you look each player up by name; if nobody comes up, *“Crear nuevo jugador”* (Create a new player) adds them there and then. With a phone number, the platform sends the invitation, and that invitation is their account: they get in with no password.

By Excel, which is what actually gets used when there are eighty pairs. *“Importar Excel”* (Import from Excel): download the template, fill it in, upload it. Its columns are in Spanish:

Nombre Jugador 1 | Apellido Jugador 1 | Teléfono Jugador 1 (opcional)
Nombre Jugador 2 | Apellido Jugador 2 | Teléfono Jugador 2 (opcional)
Categoría | País

The category is recognised written several ways: `4ta Varonil`, `cuarta varonil`, `VARONIL 4TA` or plain `4` all land in the same one. Before anything is imported you get a review screen with what is about to be created, row by row, errors flagged. Nothing enters the tournament until you confirm there.

2.5 Review

A last look at everything, then it is created. The tournament is born as a draft: nobody sees it yet.

3 · Publishing and taking registrations

On the tournament screen, under the “Ajustes” (Settings) tab, the “Publicar torneo” (Publish tournament) button makes it public. From that moment it shows up in the tournament search and has an address of its own, one you can read:

whinpadel.com/torneos/torneo-amateur-advantage-san-luis-potosi-2026

That is the link you hand out. Pasted into WhatsApp it brings up the tournament poster with its title, so upload the poster before you send it. Pairs register from there: they pick a category, invite their partner and pay. Every entry reaches you in the bell and by email.

Under the “Inscripciones” (Registrations) tab you see who came in and who owes, and from there you approve, move someone to another category, fix a name or drop a pair. When a category fills up, whoever arrives late goes on the waiting list and only gets in if somebody drops out.

4 · Getting paid

Under “Ajustes → Cobro” (Settings → Payment) you choose how this tournament gets paid. They can be combined:

• Online with Mercado Pago: card, OXXO or SPEI. The club connects its own Mercado Pago account once, from “Integraciones” (Integrations), and the money lands in that account, not in WhinPadel's. The registration marks itself paid.
• By bank transfer: the pair uploads the receipt with its reference, and you check it under the “Cobros” (Payments) tab before marking it paid.
• Cash or card terminal, at the club: you mark it paid yourself.

The “Cobros” tab is the tournament's books: who has paid, who has not, how much it adds up to, and the receipt for each payment. Refunding an online payment is done from there too. It is what you need on Friday night, when you have to decide whose spot gets held.

5 · Building the play

Once registration closes, the tournament screen has three tabs, one per phase, and the order matters: each one leans on what the one before it did. Above every button you can read what it does and what it leaves alone.

If you would rather not go phase by phase, “Generar todo” (Generate everything) does whatever is missing, in order, for every category, and leaves alone whatever already exists. And before any of it, “Ver cómo quedaría” (See how it would look) shows the whole tournament simulated, without saving: how many matches, which days, what is left with no slot.

How it splits them. With 18 pairs you get 6 groups of 3: every pair plays twice and the top two of each group go through. Those 12 qualifiers make a preliminary round — 4 matches and 4 byes —, then quarters, semifinal and final. The schedule places semifinals and finals as well: the final at its hour on the last day, and the semis the evening before, or the same day if they do not fit earlier.

Each button changes its name once there is something done: “Rehacer grupos” (Redo the groups), “Rehacer eliminatoria” (Redo the bracket), “Rehacer las horas”. Before redoing anything, a dialog says exactly what gets deleted and what is kept. If a category has some matches with a time and others without, the button offers “Poner horas a los que faltan” (Set the times for the ones missing) and leaves the rest where it is.

5.1 Schedule requests and rules

On the “Rol” tab, above the buttons, sit the “Restricciones de horario” (Schedule restrictions): what the pairs told you (“Saturday morning I can't”). You write them down yourself with *“Apuntar lo que te dijeron”* (Note down what they told you), or the player asks from their own registration, and you approve each one while seeing how many slots that pair has left. The schedule only honours them if they are approved before the times are set.

Below that, the “Reglas del generador” (Generator rules): rest between rounds, cap on matches per pair per day, time of the finals. They come with sensible values; change them only if the tournament asks you to.

5.2 When something goes wrong

Once the times are set, the panel and the control desk show the schedule faults: one person in two matches at once, an approved request overridden, a match called at an hour that no longer exists. Red is what has to be fixed; amber is a warning, like a short rest.

If the schedule came out unrecognisable and you would rather start again, at the bottom of the “Rol” tab is “Empezar de cero” (Start from scratch): it deletes groups, matches and times for the whole tournament once you type BORRAR. It refuses if a result has already been entered.

6 · The day of the tournament

The “Torre de control” (Control desk) button, at the top of the tournament screen, opens Saturday's desk. Three views: the court board (what is on each court and who is waiting), the matches by hour, and the grid (courts against hours: you pick up a match, see where it fits, drop it). Plus the club screen, to hang on a TV at reception.

The score is entered from the match, set by set; a walkover is recorded with its reason in two taps. Saving does two things on its own:

• the group table is recalculated — matches, sets, games — and, when the group is over, the qualifiers drop into the bracket
• in the knockout, the winner moves on to their next tie

Players can enter their own score from their phone; the other pair approves it and, if nobody says anything, it confirms itself after 24 hours. The desk sees them in a strip at the top of the control desk and can take one with a single tap.

7 · What the player sees

On their phone, at the tournament's public address:

• “Parejas” (Pairs) — who is registered in each category (it can be hidden from “Ajustes”).
• “Calendario” (Calendar) — the day's schedule, with time, court and opponent; search your name and your match comes first.
• “Grupos” and “Eliminatoria” — the tables with who is going through, and the bracket with the provisional ties marked as such until the groups are done.
• “Mi inscripción” (My registration) — their payment, their partner, and from there they ask for a time change or enter a score.
• “Premios” (Prizes), “Patrocinadores” (Sponsors) and “Reglamento” (Rules).

For handing round on WhatsApp there is a schedule sheet per category, at the tournament address followed by /horarios: one column, large type, meant to be read on a phone.

Things worth knowing

The phone number does more than let you call. It is what identifies a player from one tournament to the next: two people with the same name and no number end up as two separate profiles, and their points split with them. When you get the numbers, fill them in.

What you move by hand has no history. If you move matches from the control desk and then press “Rehacer las horas” for that category, they are handed out again from scratch. The dialog warns you; read it.

Group tiebreakers follow the standard rules: matches won, set difference, game difference, and the result between the pairs that are tied. The table applies it on its own.

Practise without fear

Before the first real tournament, create one with four made-up pairs and run it end to end: draw the groups, build the bracket, set the times, open the control desk. It is born as a draft, nobody sees it, and you delete it when you are done. Half an hour there is worth more than reading this guide twice.