Young SENIORS, SENIORS & Super SENIORS Sanctioned Tournament Seeding and Scheduling Rules

making effective draws / progressive draws & formats

Tournament Directors should make every effort to run each event within a Tournament if at all possible, even if there are smaller numbers in the event. Following the example at National level and as is the norm at Seniors level internationally all options are to be considered to accommodate players.

Where the entries in an event are less than 5, Round Robins should be used. Even if only 3 entries are available the event should still go ahead.

Combining events might seem like a sensible idea in terms of making draws bigger but it is actually an impediment to encouraging more players to play in the future and it also conflicts with the ethos of promoting Seniors Tennis and having competitions based on age. It also increases the chances of disruption of the national ranking system which Munster Branch uses to select Inter-Provincial Teams. This principle is particularly important in singles. Particularly for the older age groups (in the Super Seniors) events should still ahead and
go to a straight final if only 2 entries are received to encourage those players to keep playing into the future.

For smaller Tournaments, while the general advice is to where possible provide for at least Singles events at 5 year intervals; there is also an acknowledgment of smaller venues and entries it probably makes more sense to have the doubles events at 10 year intervals.

So options for smaller tournaments might look something like this:
​
Singles events at over 35,45,55,65,75 (10 year intervals)
Doubles events at over 35,45,55,65,75 (10 year intervals)

or

Singles events at over 35,40,45,50,55,60,65,70,75 (5 year intervals)
Doubles events at over 35,45,55,65,75 (10 year intervals)

All national events must be as follows:

Singles events at over 35,40,45,50,55,60,65,70,75, 80 (5 year intervals)
Doubles events at over 35,40,45,50,55,60,65,70,75, 80 (5 year intervals)​

Failure to adequately seed/schedule a sanctioned tournament may result in sanction.