Round robin with 12 players on 2 courts

[luukarens]

Hi all, 

I'm organising my first (small) mixed doubles tournament next week, here in Nairobi. It is limited to 12 players as we only have 2 courts available. I was thinking of dividing the players in 2 groups of 6 players on each court. What, however, is the easiest way to schedule the pairs and matches? We have 4 hours to play, so should we play 1 set?

Many thanks for your help!

Luuk

[Ian Wakeling]

You could play 3 matches on each court, such that each of the 6 players assigned to that court played in 2 of the 3 matches.  There will not be a balanced way of doing this, but you should be able to ensure that all the partnerships are different, and most of the opponents are different.

[luukarens]

Dear Ian, 

Thanks for helping me out with this. I will give it a try! It's a 'social' tournament, so it should not be very competitive, but trying to make it as balanced as possible.

Thank you. Luuk