2019 English Open Pickleball Tournament
Terms and Conditions

General

• The tournament will be held in accordance with the IFP/USAPA Official Tournament Rulebook. A copy of the Rulebook will be available at the tournament.
• The English OPEN is open to players of all ages and abilities. Players under 18 must be accompanied by a responsible adult.
  
• All players are asked to abide by English OPEN tournament etiquette Click Here
• We will have a paramedic and first aiders at the tournament but players enter at their OWN risk. All players are to sign a waiver of liability form at time of check in.
• Players self rating is subject to change if the tournament committee deems it. There can only be .5 difference between a Doubles and Singles self-rating.
• As the entries for each age/rating event bracket varies, the tournament committee reserve the right to merge some brackets to ensure that every player gets a minimum of 4 matches (hopefully many more) per event.
• The Competition Draw was made on 7th August and is published on our Pickleball England Tournament Software (PETS). There will be screens in the Players Lounge detailing the upcoming matches on all courts. All players will be sent a pdf of their schedule via email and a link to PETS to enable players to browse their schedules and their standing as the tournament progresses.
• The Competition Draw is subject to change if there are late withdrawals.
• The competition format will be round robin group stages where every win and point will count towards where you end in the group. Not every team goes forward to the knockout or single elimination stages. See further information under Competition Format Click Here
• We have a Championship Court which will be live streamed all day. If you have any objection to playing on or around the Championship Court you must let the tournament committee know. It is assumed that every player has given permission, unless we are advised otherwise.

Competition Format

• The tournament will be an age and skill level tournament
• Each event will comprise round robin group games followed by a knock out competition (except where an event has fewer than 4 players which will be round robin best of 3 games to 11 win by 2
• Each game played will impact where teams finish in the table after the round robin has finished
• Table results will be sorted by number of wins, points difference, points scored and If there is still a tie then head to head
• A defined number of teams will go through to the knockout or single elimination rounds
• The score sheet provided to teams will define whether the game is played to 11, 15 or 21 and win by 1 or 2 and whether it is 1 game or best of 3
• The winning team is responsible for entering the score on the score sheet and getting both team's signature to agree the score is entered correctly
• Score sheets should be returned immediately to the designated 'court monitor' by one of the players in the winning team. The winning player has to verify that the score has been entered correctly before the court monitor submits the score to PETS [Pickleball England Tournament Software]
• In the round robin matches there will be no time outs allowed. In the knock out rounds, each team is allowed a 1 minute time out per game. In the event of a medical time out, a max of 15 minutes is allowed before the team calling the time out forfeits
• In the round robin stages, teams are asked to be foot fault and NVZ line adjudicators for each others matches. Since the first named team collects the score card, we ask one of the second named team to stay to adjudicate the next game on your court
• 20 minutes of court time is allocated for doubles games to 11 and 15 minutes for singles to 11. 25 minutes for doubles games to 15 and 20 minutes for singles to 15. A maximum of 2 minutes of knock up is allowed before a game starts if required and the schedule is not running late.
• Any team not arriving on court within 10 minutes of their game's start time may forfeit the match
• In the event of a team withdrawing from the competition, all of the team's games will be taken out of the table results
• Late arrivals – any matches forfeited due to late arrival will be scored as 11-0 but the team can continue in the competition if they arrive in time for their second match.
• Medal matches will be refereed
• Gold, Silver & Bronze medals will be awarded. In the event that an age group/skill group has been added together, we will have Nickel medals for the best placed teams for each age/skill group that either plays down in age or up in skill level
• The Medal Ceremony takes place immediately after the final matches each day on the Championship Court and will be live streamed. After all medals are awarded we would like to get a group photo of all medal winners for that day .

English OPEN tournament etiquette

We want everyone to enjoy the English OPEN tournament, here are a few tips to keep things fair and enjoyable:

• Check in is between 12 noon & 1pm on Friday 23rd August and between 8am & 9am on Saturday 24th and Sunday 25th August
• Games will start promptly at 1pm on Friday 23rd August and 9.00am on Saturday 24th and Sunday 25th August
• We ask all new tournament players to ensure you arrive at the venue before the end of check in to attend a player briefing on your first day
• All players will be given a personal match schedule when they check in. The schedule will also be available online (see menu at top of this page)
• Thank your opponents for the game, maybe take a selfie together
• If you have played in tournaments before we ask you to arrive 15 minutes before your first match of the day
• Give your opponent time to get into position before you serve
• The server should clearly announce the score before they serve
• If the opponent claims there was a major distraction while hitting a shot (e.g. ball bouncing onto the court), don't hesitate to replay the point
• Please do not walk behind a court whilst a rally is in progress
• Please only call a ball out if it clearly is, if in doubt don't call it out!
• Please refrain from swearing whilst on court
• Please do not throw your paddle