Coed volleyball tournament

[coppertop]

Hi, I would like to schedule a round robin volleyball tournament with 20 players.  Here's the catch, 10 of the players are women and 10 are men.  Each female will play with each male just once.  Each male will play with each female just once.  A male will never play with a male and female will never play with a female.  In everything I have found, this last restriction is never address.  There should be 10 rounds to the tournament with some repeate of opponents.  Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance,
Coppertop

[Ian Wakeling]

Coppertop,

I am not sure about the size of the teams. In the past we have had this request for a tournament with teams of four.  But, if I am guessing correctly, then you are looking for teams of two, in which case your tournament will be more like this schedule for spouse avoiding mixed doubles .  Your players will of course not have spouse pairs, however a schedule of this type is a good starting point since you can assign your players to pairs at random, then add an extra round where each team consists of one of these pairings.  This extra round will bring the repeated opponents that you mention, and will work better if you have an even number of men and women.  Unfortunately these mixed doubles tournaments exist for 8 spouse pairs and 12 spouse pairs but not for 10 pairs.

Ian.