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The Phoenix Tennis Club has commissioned a computer program to produce an American Tournament Draw for any number of rounds, players and courts. Further information or email

Using the software

This is DOS software, not Windows (or any other operating system), so the first thing to do on a Windows box is to bring up a DOS window. You do this by START->RUN and then typing COMMAND into the window that pops up. A DOS window should appear and you will be in the directory (folder) that corresponds to your desktop. Unless you are an experienced DOS user, the easiest approach is to put the software on your desktop. Then you run the program by typing its name.

The program will prompt you for some information:

• Range of men players ie 4,8 >
  Enter two numbers, representing the smallest number and the largest number of men players for which you want the draw printed out. Separate the two numbers with a comma.
• Range of women players ie 5,9 >
  Enter two numbers, representing the smallest number and the largest number of women players for which you want the draw printed out. Separate the two numbers with a comma.
• Number of courts to use>
  Enter the number of courts you intend to use.
• Number of rounds to play>
  Enter the number of successive sets you want to play.
• Number of rounds per page width>
  Enter the number of rounds you want printed across your page.
• Name of output file>
  Enter the name of the text file to receive the output.

You will see a lot of information printed to the screen which you can safely ignore. When the program finishes running, look at the output file (using type in DOS or Notepad in Windows).

The output that you will see in Example 2 only makes sense if each player is assigned a number. (Men and women are numbered separately).

Example 1

If you are running a tournament and you expect to have between 8 and 14 men attend and between 9 and 13 women to attend, you intend to use 4 courts and play 5 rounds and you want all 5 rounds printed across the page, saving the output in draw1.txt then run the program as follows:

• Range of men players ie 4,8 > 8,14
• Range of women players ie 5,9 > 9,13
• Number of courts to use> 4
• Number of rounds to play> 5
• Number of rounds per page width> 5
• Name of output file> draw1.txt

The output is too long to show here. For an explanation of the output see Example 2 below.

Example 2

You take the software, on a laptop say, to the tournament and when everyone has arrived you enter the details. So if you have 9 men and 8 women, you will be using 3 courts and want to play 4 rounds all of which are printed across the page, saving the ouput in draw2.txt, then run the program as follows:

• Range of men players ie 4,8 > 9,9
• Range of women players ie 5,9 > 8,8
• Number of courts to use> 3
• Number of rounds to play> 4
• Number of rounds per page width> 4
• Name of output file> draw2.txt

You should obtain the following output:

MEN 9   LADIES 8   COURTS 3
M2 &L4  v M5 &L1   M8 &L7  v M7 &L2   M8 &L3  v M2 &L8   M3 &L7  v M5 &L3   
M6 &L7  v M4 &L6   M4 &L1  v M6 &L3   M3 &L2  v M9 &L4   M6 &L2  v M2 &L5   
M3 &L5  v M1 &L8   M9 &L8  v M5 &L6   M1 &L1  v M7 &L5   M1 &L6  v M4 &L4   
Byes M7,M8,M9,L2   Byes M1,M2,M3,L4   Byes M4,M5,M6,L6   Byes M7,M8,M9,L1   
L3                 L5                 L7                 L8                 

Each column of the output shows who plays (and who has byes) in a particular round. So for the first round on court 1, Man 2 will play with Lady 4 against Man 5 and Lady 1. On court 2, Man 6 will play with Lady 7 against Man 4 and Lady 6. On court 3, Man 3 will play with Lady 5 against Man 1 and Lady 8. Man 7, 8, 9 and Lady 2 and 3 will have byes.

For the second round, on court 1 Man 8 plays with Lady 7 against Man 7 and Lady 2 -- and so on.

Author: Christine Clark <cc@essex.ac.uk>
Date: 29-June-2006