Free round robin generator for badminton
Set the players, the courts and the rounds, and get a full rotation where everybody keeps getting a new partner and the waits are shared out evenly. Works in your browser: no account, no signup, nothing to install.
Use real names instead of Player 1, 2, 3…
How the draw works
Every round the generator looks at what has already happened: who has partnered whom, who has played against whom, and who has already sat. It then searches for the arrangement that repeats the least.
It cannot check every option. Seventeen players on four courts allow roughly 3.6 billion ways to arrange a single round, so it runs a local search with random restarts, the same code the live product uses.
One thing it will not do: put two players together twice while a fresh pairing is still available. Eight players over seven rounds gives twenty eight different pairs and no repeats at all.
The peg board is the problem it solves
Most club nights run on a peg board, and it is a fair system in theory: your peg goes up, you wait your turn, you get a court. In practice it sorts the hall by who knows whom. The same four pegs keep going up together, the stronger players hold the far courts all session, and a newcomer waits twenty minutes, plays one game with three strangers and does not come back.
A drawn rotation removes the negotiation entirely. Every round is decided in advance, so nobody has to ask to be included and nobody has to be the person who says no.
This page is for whoever ends up running the session, and it costs nothing. No account, no trial that expires. The rotation it produces is the finished thing: print it, pin it to the wall, done.
Rally scoring means nothing needs translating
Badminton has scored every rally since 2006, so the format drops straight in. Twenty one is the natural number for a round because it is the number the hall already thinks in.
The one adjustment worth making is the ending. A normal game goes to 21 but must be won by two, running on to 30 if it has to, which means courts finish at wildly different times and three pairs stand around watching the fourth grind out 29:27. For a rotation on the clock, treat 21 as a shared pool instead: both pairs draw from the same 21 points, a round ends 13:8 or 21:0, the two numbers always add up, and every court finishes together.
That costs you win-by-two and gains you a hall that rotates cleanly. If the group will not give it up, keep normal scoring and end rounds on the clock instead, giving the round to whoever is ahead.
Partners rotate, the score is individual
Your partner changes every round, and the points you score are yours rather than the pair's. Finish 13:8 and you and your partner both take 13, then you are on opposite sides next round.
The result is a single ranking of people at the end of the session rather than a set of unrelated match results, and it is the reason the format travels: the person at the top played best, not the person who got the best partner.
It also means the draw has to be right. If two people keep landing together the standings quietly stop meaning anything, which everyone senses long before anyone says it.
Courts, players and the shape of the session
Four to a court, so eight players fill two courts, twelve fill three, sixteen fill four. Halls usually have more courts than a racket club has, which is why badminton handles large groups better than most: twenty four people on six courts is an ordinary Tuesday.
Eight on two courts is the only size where the format completes. Seven rounds and every player has partnered every other player exactly once, with nobody sitting down at all.
At a pool of 21 a round runs twelve to fifteen minutes, so a two hour session is about seven rounds once arrivals and changeovers are paid for. Shorten the pool to 15 and you get ten rounds instead, which in a big group is the difference between meeting seven people and meeting ten.
Mixed doubles and mixed levels
Many clubs run mixed doubles as the default, in which case the Mixicano draw is closer to what the club night already does: it builds every round so each pair is one man and one woman, instead of leaving it to be sorted out at the board.
For a wide spread of standards, the Mexicano draw builds each round from the current standings from round two onwards, so within a round or two people are playing with and against others hitting at their pace.
What no draw can fix is a county player and a beginner on the same court. At that point you are running two sessions, and the honest move is to split the courts and say so.
Questions organisers ask
- How do you organise a badminton round robin?
- Decide the courts and the pool, then draw the rounds so nobody repeats a partner and nobody waits twice in a row. The generator above does the draw; by hand it is guesswork done while the hall waits.
- What score should a round be played to?
- Twenty one, treated as a shared pool so the two scores add up and every court finishes together. Use 15 if you want more rounds and more partners in the same session.
- How many courts for 16 players?
- Four. Four to a court in doubles, so sixteen divides exactly and nobody sits out.
- Is this better than a peg board?
- For a social session, usually yes. A board is fair about turns but not about mixing: the same groups keep going up together, and newcomers wait. A drawn rotation decides it in advance so nobody has to ask.
- Can we still play win by two?
- Not inside a shared pool, because the pool is fixed. Keep win by two if the session is relaxed, or end rounds on the clock and give the round to whoever is ahead.
- Is this the same as Americano?
- Yes. Americano is the name the format carries in padel, and badminton needs no translation at all because the scoring is already by rally.
After the schedule, the session still has to run
The rotation is the easy half. The hard half moves: two people drop out an hour before, three more ask to come, and the scores live on a phone that keeps locking itself.
That is what MyPadel does. You open a session and send one link. Players add and remove themselves, the rounds rebuild when the number changes, and the standings update on everyone's screen as the scores come in.
The generator above stays free and account-free, always. The live session needs a free organiser account, because a session has to belong to somebody.