This feature is currently in Beta, meaning it is actively being tested and refined before a full release. It is not available to all organizations. Access is currently limited to clubs with an active CourtReserve + Swish integration. To request access, contact our Customer Support team via live chat or email.
Introduction
Feature Summary: Tournaments brings tournament setup, registration, payments, waivers, and player communication into CourtReserve. In this Beta release, brackets run through your club's connected Swish account, while everything leading up to tournament day happens in CourtReserve.
Use Cases:
Build a tournament with guided questions, by copying a past event, or from scratch.
Set up divisions with their own formats, fees, and rating or age requirements.
Offer membership-based pricing on entry fees.
Let players register and pay in the member portal or mobile app, and add walk-up entries at the front desk.
Send divisions and players to Swish to run the brackets on tournament day.
Overview
Tournaments is rolling out in phases. This Beta release is built for full tournaments with several divisions, and covers everything from building a tournament through registration and prep. Bracket play runs through your club's connected Swish account. Native CourtReserve brackets are planned for a later release.
What Happens in CourtReserve and What Happens in Swish
In CourtReserve - Building the tournament, divisions, entry fees, registration, payments, waivers, and player communication. Players register and pay in the member portal or mobile app, the same way they do for events. Players never need a Swish account to register or pay.
In Swish - Bracket generation, seeding, and live match play. CourtReserve sends each division and its players to Swish, and you run the brackets from the Swish app or dashboard.
Prerequisites
Before you create your first tournament, complete these setup steps.
Turn On Tournaments
During the Beta, Tournaments is free and available to any club with the Swish integration set up: the Swish add-on turned on and your club’s Swish API key saved. If either is missing, Tournaments doesn’t appear. For setup steps, see CourtReserve + Swish Integration.
Once Tournaments is available for your club, turn it on:
Navigate to Settings > Additional Features. On newer plans, navigate to Settings > Add-Ons.
Scroll to the Enhanced Play section.
Check the box next to Tournaments, marked BETA. To go straight to the Tournaments page, click Setup.
Note: If you don’t see Tournaments, check that your Swish integration is fully set up, then log out, log back in, and check again.
Once it's on, Tournaments appears in the left navigation menu, marked Beta, and a Tournaments tile appears at the end of the Additional Features row on the Settings page. Only admins and staff with tournament access see the menu item.
Give Staff Access
Admins always have full access to Tournaments. Other system users need a tournament permission, or they can be assigned to specific tournaments as co-organizers or coordinators. For details, see Tournament Staff Permissions.
The Tournaments Page
To open Tournaments, click Tournaments in the left navigation menu. The page lists your club’s tournaments on two tabs, Current & upcoming and Past tournaments, each with a count. The Current & upcoming count includes drafts. Below the page title, a link shows how many tournaments are open for registration.
To narrow the list, search by name or choose a sport from the All sports dropdown.
On the Past tournaments tab, you can also filter by date: Any date, This week, This month, or Last 3 months.
On the Current & upcoming tab, tournaments are grouped by when they start: This week, Next week, or Later. Tournaments you haven’t published yet are listed under Drafts. On the Past tournaments tab, tournaments are grouped by month.
Each tournament card shows:
Image - The tournament’s banner, or a tile showing the sport if no banner was uploaded.
Dates - The day or days the tournament runs.
Name, sport, and format - For example: “Tennis · Round robin · Set partners.”
Registration status - When registration closes, or Registration closed once it has.
Alerts - Anything that needs attention, such as Assign courts before play starts or Pick a format before you build the schedule.
Entries - For current and upcoming tournaments, entries registered out of the total available, with a progress bar and the number of spots left. For past tournaments, the number of entries and divisions, and the percentage of spots filled.
Draft cards show how many setup steps are done and what’s next instead (for example: “Next step: Pick a format”).
To open a tournament, click anywhere on its card. The ... menu on a current or upcoming tournament includes:
Pin to top - Keeps the tournament at the top of the list.
Duplicate - Starts a new tournament as a copy of this one.
Add a banner - Upload a banner for the tournament without opening the full edit steps.
Share invite link - Copies the tournament’s registration link.
Pinned tournaments are listed under Pinned at the top of the Current & upcoming tab. To pin a tournament without opening the menu, hover over its name and click the star.
On a past tournament, the ... menu includes Run it again, which starts a new tournament as a copy of that one, opening on the Basics step.
At the top of the page, click Create Tournament to start a new tournament, or Audit Log to see a history of changes across all of your club’s tournaments.
Note: If no tournaments match your search or filter, click Clear Filters to reset them, or View Past Tournaments to switch tabs.
How a Tournament Runs
Tournament Stages
Every published tournament has its own management page with an Overview and a progress tracker that moves through five stages:
Stage | What happens |
Setup | Build the tournament: basics, divisions, fees, courts, and policies. |
Registration | Players register and pay. Organizers add walk-up entries, link partners, and manage the waitlist. |
Prep | A checklist of what still needs attention before tournament day, such as blocking courts or resolving divisions that didn't fill. |
Bracket | Send divisions and players to Swish, and run the brackets there. |
Wrap-up | Final standings. Coming soon. |
Creating a Tournament
Click Create Tournament and choose how to build:
Use Autopilot - Answer a few questions, and Autopilot drafts the tournament for you to review.
Start from existing - Copy one of your club's past tournaments, then update the dates and anything that's changed.
Start from scratch - Build every setting yourself.
Each option moves through the same setup steps: Basics > Divisions > Fees > Courts > Polish & Policies > Review. Nothing is published until you confirm. For details, see Creating a Tournament.
Registering Players
Once a tournament is published, members can find it under Tournaments in the member portal and mobile app, then register and pay. Each player sees how many divisions they're eligible for and the entry fee based on their membership.
Organizers can also add registrations from the tournament's Registration stage, including walk-up entries for players who aren't members. In doubles divisions, a player can register without a partner and be linked with another player later.
For details, see Managing Tournament Registrations and Player Perspective: Registering for a Tournament.
Preparing for Tournament Day
The Prep stage includes a checklist of what still needs attention, such as blocking courts, resolving divisions that didn't fill, and following up on unsigned waivers.
Required items must be completed before the tournament is ready for brackets. For details, see Managing a Published Tournament.
Running Brackets in Swish
For this Beta release, brackets run in Swish. On the tournament's Bracket stage, Sync to Swish sends the tournament's divisions and players to your club's Swish account. With Keep in sync with Swish on, the tournament syncs automatically when you publish or save changes, and the roster refreshes every 6 hours. If you need new registrations in Swish sooner, click Sync now to send them right away. Each division is matched to a Swish format, and formats Swish can't run are marked Not supported on Swish.
To run the bracket, open the tournament in the Swish app or dashboard. A QR code and link on the Bracket stage open it on your phone. For details, see Sync a Tournament to Swish.
On tournament day, the Swish app shows each division with its schedule and pools, assigns matches to courts, and tracks scores as games are played. Spectators can follow along by scanning the tournament's QR code or entering its spectator code.
What Your Players See
Players can find and register for your club’s tournaments in the CourtReserve mobile app or on the member portal.
In the mobile app, players tap Tournaments under Explore More on the home screen, or under More. On the member portal, they click Tournaments in the top menu. From there, List shows your club’s upcoming tournaments, and My Tournaments shows the ones they’ve registered for.
Each tournament in the list shows its sport and format, dates, how many divisions are at the player’s level, whether registration is open, and the price.
When players open a tournament, they see the dates, fees, prize money, and registration deadline, along with each division and how many spots are left. Divisions they aren’t eligible for are grouped separately. The page also shows the tournament details, your club’s contact, sponsors, and the waivers and refund policy.
To register, players choose their divisions, add a doubles partner, sign any waivers, answer registration questions, and pay. Their entries then appear at the top of the tournament page, where they can pay a balance, change their division or partner, leave a waitlist, or withdraw.
For a step-by-step walkthrough of the player experience, see Player Perspective: Registering for a Tournament.
What's Ahead
Several features are marked Coming soon in this Beta release and are planned for later releases:
Native CourtReserve brackets - Generate draws, seed players, record results, and schedule matches without Swish.
Wrap-up - Final standings once a tournament ends.
Templates - Ready-made setups for common formats, such as elimination brackets, round robins, pool play into playoffs, and team events.
Private tournaments - Tournaments only people with the link can see.
Round robin - A simpler option for small, weekly round robins that don't need full tournament setup.
Tournament Articles
Article | Description | Learn More |
Creating a Tournament | Build a tournament with Autopilot, by copying a past tournament, or from scratch, and walk through each setup step. | |
Managing a Published Tournament | Use the tournament's Overview page, progress tracker, Prep checklist, and Audit Log. | |
Managing Tournament Registrations | Add registrations, collect payments, link and substitute partners, and manage the waitlist. | |
Sync a Tournament to Swish | Send divisions and players to Swish and keep registrations in sync. | |
Player Perspective: Registering for a Tournament | See how players find, register for, and pay for tournaments in the member portal and mobile app. | |
Tournament Staff Permissions | Give system users club-wide or tournament-specific access. | |
Tournaments FAQ | Answers to common questions about Tournaments. |
Summary
Tournaments gives your club one place to run its biggest events. Build a tournament quickly with Autopilot, let players register and pay from the member portal or mobile app, and keep every entry, payment, and waiver in CourtReserve, right alongside the rest of your club. On tournament day, hand off to Swish for live brackets and scoring, so you can spend less time managing spreadsheets and more time running a great event.