Round Robin Tournament Scheduling

Please help with tennis round robin

zooey123 · 5 · 6852

zooey123

  • Newbie
  • *
    • Posts: 6
on: August 24, 2009, 03:39:42 PM
I have 12 participants in a tennis round robin.  8 will play at once on 2 courts of doubles tennis once per week for 16 weeks.  The number of times played should be the same for each participant.  Partners and opponents should change as well.  Can anyone help me please?  


Ian Wakeling

  • Forum Moderator
  • God Member
  • *****
    • Posts: 1140
Reply #1 on: August 24, 2009, 04:56:31 PM
As stated the problem can not be solved since the total number of byes is 16*4=64, a number that is not divisible by 12, so some players will have more byes (and fewer games) than others.  The best compromise would be to play 15 weeks.  I can find a schedule for this where no partnerships are repeated and where pairs oppose no more than twice.

      Court 1        Court 2         Byes
 ( 1  8 v  7  5) ( 4  6 v 9 11)  (3 12  2 10)
 ( 2  9 v  8  6) ( 5  4 v 7 12)  (1 10  3 11)
 ( 3  7 v  9  4) ( 6  5 v 8 10)  (2 11  1 12)
 (11 10 v  3 12) ( 1  7 v 2  6)  (4  9  5  8)
 (12 11 v  1 10) ( 2  8 v 3  4)  (5  7  6  9)
 (10 12 v  2 11) ( 3  9 v 1  5)  (6  8  4  7)
 (12  1 v  3  8) (11  5 v 2  4)  (9  7  6 10)
 (10  2 v  1  9) (12  6 v 3  5)  (7  8  4 11)
 (11  3 v  2  7) (10  4 v 1  6)  (8  9  5 12)
 ( 9  6 v  5 12) (10  3 v 7  8)  (1  4  2 11)
 ( 7  4 v  6 10) (11  1 v 8  9)  (2  5  3 12)
 ( 8  5 v  4 11) (12  2 v 9  7)  (3  6  1 10)
 ( 1  3 v 11  6) (10  9 v 8  4)  (2  5 12  7)
 ( 2  1 v 12  4) (11  7 v 9  5)  (3  6 10  8)
 ( 3  2 v 10  5) (12  8 v 7  6)  (1  4 11  9)


zooey123(Guest)

  • Guest
Reply #2 on: August 24, 2009, 03:15:31 PM
I am setting up a round robin with 12 players.  8 with play each day (2 courts of tennis doubles).  I would like to mix up partners and opponents each day.  It is important to have a fair rotation where each player plays the same number of times (not play every third time).  Any ideas?


zooey123

  • Newbie
  • *
    • Posts: 6
Reply #3 on: August 24, 2009, 06:28:14 PM
Thank you!  Is it possible to set this up so that no one has 2 byes in a row or plays 3 weeks in a row?


Ian Wakeling

  • Forum Moderator
  • God Member
  • *****
    • Posts: 1140
Reply #4 on: August 25, 2009, 02:00:01 AM
Sorry, the program I used to find the schedule doesn't consider the spacing of the byes.  The order of the 15 rounds can of course be changed to try to minimize the problems you identify.  For example if you played the first six rounds from above in the order 1,4,2,5,3,6 then this would eliminate the 2 byes in a row problem from that part of the schedule, so this problem can be largely eliminated by careful choice of the ordering of the rounds.
« Last Edit: August 25, 2009, 02:03:43 AM by Ian »