Tennis Tournaments

Tennis Tournaments are are special tennis events held by the community where players "compete" against one another. Usually held in the summer, tournaments last about 3-6 months on average. Anywhere from 8-48+ players will duke it out to see who is, subjectively, "the best".

Remember, as competitive as these may be, don't forget the golden rule: No one wins at tennis, ever!

History

List of Tennis Tournaments

The beginning

The first tennis tournament was hosted by Gallers in 2007. There were only four players - SushieBoy, Misslaineous10, PapaGonzales, and RabbitSnore.

From humble beginnings, things got nuts.

Youchew era

The last tournament hosted on YouChew was DC3 finishing just days before the site went down.

Post-Youchew era

The end of Youchew brought a disturbance in tennis overall, as many players called it quits and left the scene, including many of the staff at the time. As a result, it was quite a while until another tournament was to happen.

The first tournament hosted on YTPMania was TL5.

The future

The future for tennis tournaments remain uncertain. As modern tennis becomes more and more complex and intricate, it is hard to sit down and create something "competitive" in less than a week. This led to longer turnovers, which led to longer sets, longer tournaments - and much greater burnout.

To contemplate for these changes in the meta, many have considered the abandonment of tournaments altogether towards more "friendly" events. On the contrary, tournaments are one of the driving forces of the community as, well, they're exciting; many people from many eras coming together to create cool stuff. If tournaments do indeed continue, it is likely to see many more Match Voting tournaments and others that emphasize working together, rather than out-doing your opponent.

Tournament Types

There have been six major types of tennis tournaments, with all minor types being derivatives of one of these formats.

Tennis Cup

The 'vanilla' tournament - a bracket of 2^n players face off in a regular, 6 round match. People vote, and the winner moves on. Last man standing wins!

Tennis League

The 'OG' tournament - players are split into 'divisions' where they play everyone in their division, usually to four rounds. Winners get 3 points, ties split at 1 point, and losers get none. After everyone has been played, a multi-way "final match" occurs with the winner of each division. The winner of that match is the winner overall!

This type of tournament has largely been criticized in modern times due to its length and creating lack of drive to continue after losing enough games. It likely will never happen again.

Match Voting Tournament

A newer, but more popular type of tournament - you are given a random 'partner' to work with, to create a match of your vision (usually 6 rounds). When complete, voters choose their favorite matches out of everyone in the set. Depending on the setup, the lower slice of matches are cut off, and everyone else continues. You are then assigned a new random partner. The 'final' usually consists of 3-4 teams. The highest voted match of the final wins!

This has been popular as it encourages cooperation and creativity to achieve a much more re-watchable match and enjoyable experience for the players.

Doubles/Triples Tournament

Similar to a tennis cup, however involving "teams" of players that face off each other, with varying formats. This usually means the first rounds of the match are solo works, showing off each player, before transitioning into collaborative rounds. See Team Tennis for more information about this format.

X-Way Tournament

Bleeding the lines between a Tennis Chain and a regular match, X-Way Tournaments involve long strings of players partaking in a much longer match. In shorter X-Ways, only the top voted player continues; in longer ones, one player gets voted out instead (think Survivor).

This is another tournament type that struggles with length and remains unlikely to happen again.

Tennis Season

The most bizarre type of tournament that likely will remain a one-off unless heavily refactored. "Teams" of players competed throughout "gameweeks", similar to how football works. A player was chosen to represent their team for that gameweek, and then a particular match would play out against another team. Each player also had certain abilities that they could decide upon at the start of the tournament. Teams would build up points for winning matches, with the team with the most points at the end winning the tournament.

Achievements

The winners of each tennis tournament can be found in the List of Tennis Tournaments.

40+ Wins

GameBop - Due to the amount of tournaments GameBop has participated in, while winning most of the matches they participated in, they have the most wins by far out of any other tennis player.

10+ Wins

mrdoognoog dani_phantump

Archive

The Archive Masterlist is the main spreadsheet for keeping track of tournaments, past and present.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10cpwoIfVKUZLDYPYNmOMH6X3oG5g3D4Q6O3JDCcfyf0/edit?usp=sharing

A similar list also exists for unofficial tournaments and other notable tennis events. See Tennis Archives for more.