Formats

Tap the Format row to choose. The list is ordered by how often each is actually played — not alphabetically — so the usual case is at the top.

The format you chose last is the one selected next time.

The other sports, and their own formats

Set the sport to table tennis, badminton, squash, pickleball or volleyball and the Format row offers that sport's races instead of the tennis ladder above:

A game here is the whole of a set: there is nothing between the points and the games won, so the screen reads 9:7 in large figures with 2:0 under it — the games — and the finished games in the row above.

What is not counted, and why it is written down rather than left out. The traditional scoring where only the serving side scores — pickleball's own, and squash's older scoring to 9 — is not offered. It is not one missing rule: it comes with a sequence of first and second servers that decides who serves from where, and a scorekeeper that recorded every rally faithfully and still named the wrong server would be worse than one that says it does not do this. If that is what you play, write and say so.

Which of a pair serves is not shown in doubles, on any of these sports, exactly as in tennis doubles: the screen marks the serving side. In volleyball the Match type row offers Doubles for a beach pair and Team for a side of more (see Warm-up).

Your format choice is per sport. Switch from tennis to squash and the row offers squash's formats; switching back offers tennis's. A format from the other sport is never carried over, because a squash match counted in 15, 30, 40 would be wrong in a way nothing on the screen would show.

Football, handball and basketball

What there is to choose is how long the game lasts. Football: 2 × 45 min with extra time, 2 × 30 or 2 × 20 min. Handball: 2 × 30 min with overtime, or 2 × 20. Basketball: 4 × 10 or 4 × 12 min with overtime, or 2 × 20. A format "with overtime" goes on into it when the score is level at the end, which is a cup match; for a league draw, blow the final whistle. Last in each list is the clock-free tally — Goals, or Points, 2 a basket — with no periods, over when you say so. A goal is one a tap and a basket two, in every format; nobody serves. Making your own is not offered for them.

Making your own

At the bottom of the format list, under Your formats, tap New format. It opens on the format that is chosen now, so "like this, but with a match tiebreak" is one change.

Each row says what it is and what it is set to; a tap moves it to the next answer. A row that cannot apply is not shown — a one-set match has no final set, a set without a tiebreak has no tiebreak length, only a race to 21 or 25 can be capped at 30, and only a match over several games can have a shorter deciding game.

A volleyball format you make asks who serves before every set after the first, because the screen cannot tell whether you are making a beach format, where a toss decides, or a hall one, where sets alternate — and your answer is right for both.

Tap Name to type or say what to call it. Save adds it to the list, after the built-in formats, and chooses it. A format belongs to the sport it was made for.

To change or delete one, tap it under Your formats. A match already played is not touched: it keeps the rules it was played under and the name it had at the time, so renaming a format or deleting it changes nothing in your history.

Why only these choices and not every rule there is: every combination this screen can make has had a match played under it by the app's tests, with the same checks the built-in formats get. A rule with a reason of its own — TeamTennis's one-game margin, Fast4's five-point tiebreak, Coman — stays a built-in format rather than a switch anyone can combine with anything.

What the app does not do

It does not umpire. Serves, calls and lets are not its business. The format decides how it counts — who won the game, when a tiebreak starts, when a set ends.