FlexTennis Rules

Flex League is self-organized: there's no fixed schedule handed to you. You find opponents at your level, agree on a time and place, play, and report the score. These rules explain how rating groups, scheduling, scoring, and standings work so results stay fair and consistent across the league.

On this page

• Members self-rate on a skill level — 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, 4.5, 5.0 — when they register. Be honest: rating groups only work if everyone in them is genuinely competitive with each other.
• A league is split into rating groups for that season only — your group in one league doesn't carry over to the next. When a league opens, members are placed into a group based on their rating at that moment.
• If your game improves (or you get re-rated) mid-season, your new rating takes effect at your next placement — you finish out the current season in the group you started in. This keeps standings and championship seeding fair for everyone who's been grinding through that group all season.
• An admin can move you to a different group mid-season (a promotion or demotion) if warranted — this is the one case your group can change before the season ends.
• You can be registered in multiple leagues at once if more than one is running.

• There is no assigned schedule — you arrange your own matches with anyone else active in one of your rating groups.
• Use Find Players to see suggested opponents. Players you haven't faced yet are surfaced first, then players who share your available days/times, then players close to you in skill rating — so the tool nudges you toward fresh matchups instead of always the same convenient two or three people.
• Set your availability (day of week + morning/afternoon/evening) and preferred venues on your profile so other members — and the matchmaking suggestions — can find a time and place that works for both of you.
• Once you've agreed on a time, use Add Scheduled Match so it appears on both players' calendars.

Agree on a format with your opponent before you start playing. Any of the following are supported:

A set score must be won by 2 (e.g. 6-4, 7-5) or settled 7-6 with a tiebreaker score recorded — the app rejects anything that isn't a legal tennis score, so keep track of games as you go.

1. Either player can report the score after the match.
2. The result starts out provisional — it appears in match history, updates standings and ratings immediately, and shows up in your opponent's "Results to Confirm" queue.
3. Your opponent can confirm it (agreeing the score is right) or dispute it. Whoever reported the score can't confirm their own report.
4. If nobody disputes a result within 2 days, it's automatically confirmed — silence counts as agreement.
5. A dispute removes the provisional result from standings and ratings while an administrator reviews it.
6. Editing a provisional score recalculates its effect and restarts the confirmation clock. Once final, only an administrator can change it.
7. Disputed results go to an admin, who reviews the match and either upholds the reported score or corrects it. An admin's entry is final.

• If your opponent doesn't show up for a scheduled match, report it as a no-show. The match counts as a completed win for you — no scores needed. It won't change either skill rating, though: no tennis was played, so there's nothing in it to measure.
• If a match has to stop partway through because a player is injured, report it as a retirement. The player who kept playing is awarded the win. Record the score as it stood — an unfinished set like 4-2 is fine.
• If you simply run out of court time, report it as ran out of time and record the score as it stood. There's no winner and it doesn't go in the standings, but it isn't wasted: both skill ratings move on the games you actually played, so 4-2 counts for something and 3-3 counts for nothing.
• Either way you need at least six games between you for it to touch the skill ratings — below that there's nothing to go on.
• Be considerate — agree on a time you can actually keep, and give your opponent a heads-up as early as possible if you need to reschedule.

Standings within a rating group are ranked by wins (most first), then fewest losses as a tiebreak. Completed results count immediately, including while provisional.

Separately, every member also carries a skill rating (Elo-style, like chess.com) that updates after each reported result — beating a higher-rated opponent gains you more than beating a lower-rated one, and the score counts too — a 6-0 6-0 is worth around half again as much as the same win ground out 7-6 7-6, with a routine 6-4 6-4 in the middle. It starts from your self-rated skill level (3.0 → 1200, 3.5 → 1400, 4.0 → 1600, 4.5 → 1800, 5.0 → 2000) the first time you play a rated match, and moves faster early in your history and settles down as you rack up more matches. It's meant as a finer-grained, always-current read on your level in between changes to your skill level — it does not itself move you between rating groups.

A match that never finished still counts here, even though it can't count in the standings: with no winner, your rating moves on your share of the games played, so being 4-2 up when the time ran out is worth a little and 3-3 is worth nothing.

Rating changes apply the moment a result is reported. They remain provisional during the correction window and are recalculated for a correction or removed during a dispute.

• When a league ends, each rating group with at least 3 qualified members (at least one win during the season) gets its own single-elimination championship bracket.
• Qualification and seeding use your win total and games-won percentage across every match you played in that league, even if you were promoted or demoted to a different group partway through — but your seeding is applied within whichever group you finished the season in.
• Top seeds get first-round byes if the bracket isn't a perfect power of two.
• Championship match scores are reported the same way as regular-season matches.

• Standard tennis etiquette applies: call your own lines honestly, warm up briefly, and settle score disagreements calmly during the match — the app's dispute/confirm flow is the backstop, not the first move.
• Report scores promptly and accurately. Repeated disputed or incorrect reports may be reviewed by an admin.
• Your contact details (phone, etc.) are visible only to members you currently share an active rating group with — not to the whole league, and not to members you're only paired with historically.
• Be a good opponent: reply to scheduling messages promptly and confirm or dispute results within the 2-day window so the league's records stay current.
• Balls: each player brings a can. The winner takes home the unopened can.