The basics
How TrueRank works
A plain-English guide to accounts, competitions, match days, corrections and ratings.
1. Accounts
Sign in with your phone number and a one-time code. The first successful sign-in from a new number creates a player account.
Your profile holds your name, state, city, club and an optional date of birth. A verified phone number shows that the phone was reachable; it is not an identity check.
2. Competitions and events
A tournament is a one-off competition made up of events such as singles, doubles, age groups or rating-capped categories. Each event has its own entries, eligibility, format and results.
A league is played as repeating sessions over a season. Organizers set the entry rules, rating cutoff and schedule. An entry can wait for the organizer's confirmation before it is active.
3. Eligibility
Age is counted in whole years on the competition's rating cutoff date, using the date of birth in the player's profile.
For a rating-limited event, eligibility uses the player's rating at that cutoff. The cutoff is fixed before registration opens, so later rating changes do not change that eligibility decision.
4. Draws and play
- An event can use round-robin groups followed by a single-elimination knockout, or a straight single-elimination knockout. In a grouped event, the organizer chooses whether the top one or top two from each group qualify.
- After check-in, the organizer generates the draw. The knockout is generated from the official group results. The system previews group sizes, qualifiers, byes, match count and the tables and time the draw needs.
- Matches are planned on the competition's active tables and inside the event or session window. Depending on the competition's rule, matches are called automatically when their time comes or called by the organizer at the table console.
- When a match is called, each player arrives at the table before the no-show deadline. If one side is absent when the grace period ends, the match is awarded to the other side as a walkover. If both sides are absent, it is recorded as a double absence with no winner.
- An umpire assigned to the match, or to its table, can make the result official. If there is no umpire, one side submits the score and the other side confirms it. The side that submitted cannot confirm its own submission. A conflicting submission is sent to the organizer as a dispute.
- A walkover is awarded without play. A retirement records the partial games actually played. Only official results from played matches and retirements provide rating information.
5. Ratings
A rating estimates playing strength. Each player has one singles rating and one doubles rating, and the rating is the same at every club. A rating is provisional until the player has eight rated matches.
Ratings are derived from the complete record rather than added or subtracted match by match. After an official played result, the platform recomputes the relevant rating pool. A surprising win moves the result more than an expected win; walkovers and no-shows carry no rating information.
In doubles, a pair's strength is the average of the two players' doubles ratings, while each player is rated individually from the pair's results. Results from an unrated competition never feed ratings, and nobody needs a rating to enter one.
A player starts at 1200 unless an organizer assesses them at check-in or an administrator sets a starting value. Once play has earned a rating, it cannot be overwritten by an assessment.
6. Corrections and records
An organizer can correct an official result or finishing place in their competition. Before applying a result correction, the impact on later matches and ratings is shown. Downstream matches with play recorded are preserved; unplayed matches can be reseeded or cancelled as part of the correction.
Correcting an old result recomputes the ratings it affected, and replaying the record produces the same numbers. The result history and audit record stay in place, including who made the correction and why.