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Creating a competition is five steps in a wizard — Name, Venue, Format, Setup, and Review — plus two actions afterwards: publish it, and open the first round.

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1. Name

The name is the only required field here. The competition’s address is suggested from it — that is the link you send to participants.

Step 1 — the address is derived from the name you type.

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2. Venue

Search for the court or club. If it is not on the map, use Can’t find the place? Enter it manually.

Step 2 — manual entry, for when the venue is not on the map.

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3. Format

The step that decides most about how the competition will feel. Each format shows how many players it takes, who it suits, and what you gain and give up by picking it. Torn between two? Use Compare formats. Formats that do not fit the chosen sport stay in the list, disabled and with the reason: Direct Elimination, World Cup and Pyramid are singles-only.

Step 3 — sport and format, with the selected format highlighted.

Depending on the format, this step also covers:
  • Bracket options (Direct Elimination and World Cup): third-place playoff and consolation bracket
  • Divisions: one, or up to eight, defined right here

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4. Setup

Start and end dates, the entry deadline, the currency, and how entry is charged:
Handled by Matchely requires connecting a payout account before publishing: Mercado Pago to charge in Brazilian reais, or Stripe to charge in a foreign currency (dollars, euros or pounds). And the entry deadline has to end before the start date — the wizard will not let you move on until the dates line up.

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5. Review

The last screen repeats everything. Here you can also publish the competition under an Organization (club, academy, venue) and use Finish later to save it as a draft. The Publish competition button creates and publishes in one go: the competition goes live straight away, and the admin area opens asking Open entries now?. If you would rather leave it for later, Finish later saves it as a draft — nobody sees it and nobody can enter. A draft can be deleted; a published competition cannot.
You do not need a cover to publish. Without one, Matchely draws one for your competition: a coloured background with trophies, always the same for that competition. Two different competitions get different colours, even in the same format. You can upload yours later, under Information.

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Publishing a draft

If the competition stayed a draft — because you used Finish later, or because publishing did not go through — open the admin area and use the button in the banner at the top. Publishing automatically creates the first edition and the first round.

The admin area, with the notice that the competition is not published yet.

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Opening round 1

With participants in, go to Schedule → Start Round. Before generating the matches, Matchely builds a preliminary table and lets you reorder who faces whom.

The preliminary table, before the round's matches are published.

Publishing the matches freezes that order into the pairings. Reorder before confirming — after that, only by redoing the round.
In a singles League with 4 participants that means 6 pairings: everyone plays everyone. In doubles the group is exactly 4 and you get 3 matches — each player partners each of the other three once.