How to Run a DUPR-Rated Round Robin

Most clubs run a round robin every week and submit none of it. The night generates more rated matches per player than a tournament does, everyone's scores get written down anyway, and then the sheet goes in the bin.

That is a shame, because the way DUPR's algorithm is built, a weekly club round robin is close to the ideal input for it — and the difference between a session that counts properly and one that barely counts is almost entirely admin.

1. What DUPR is, briefly

DUPR was created by Steve Kuhn — the same person behind Major League Pickleball — around 2022, out of his Dreamland facility in Texas. His starting observation was that fewer than 1% of pickleball players had any rating at all, which meant most people had no way to find a competitive game and no way to see themselves improve.

Ratings run from 2.000 to 8.000, carried to three decimal places, with new players showing as NR until they have logged enough to be rated. The design brief, in DUPR's own framing, was to be free, inclusive and geographically even, rather than a credential you earn by entering tournaments.

That last point is the one that made it spread. Older rating systems largely measured people through sanctioned tournament results, which describes a small and self-selecting slice of players. DUPR counts club and league play too — which is precisely why what your Tuesday night group does with its scoresheet matters.

2. What the algorithm actually rewards

DUPR describes four inputs, and each one has a direct organizer implication:

3. Why a round robin beats a tournament for this

Here is the argument nobody makes out loud. If a player wants a reliable rating, the fastest legitimate route is not entering more tournaments — it is showing up to a club round robin that gets submitted.

A full rotating-partner round robin gives every player one match per round, so the round count is the match count. Twelve people on three courts play eleven rounds, which is eleven rated matches each, in an evening, at the weighting DUPR gives club play. A tournament day, with its waiting and its early exits, produces a handful.

Round counts by group size are on the printable round robin charts — the same rotations, already worked out.

4. The rotating-partner wrinkle

In doubles, DUPR builds a team rating from the average of the two partners' ratings, then works out what the match was expected to do. That has an interesting consequence for a rotating-partner format.

Because your partner changes every round, your team's average changes every round, and so does the expectation you are being measured against. Over eleven rounds you get measured across a spread of expectations rather than eleven times against the same one. That is a genuinely more informative sample than playing all day with one fixed partner — and it comes free with the format most clubs already run.

It also answers the objection you will hear on the night, which is "I only won because I got a strong partner." A rating built on team averages already expected you to win that one. Getting carried does less for a rating than people assume, and getting stuck with a weak partner does less damage.

5. Set this up before anyone arrives

• Create the club on DUPR and add your regulars. Club organizers can enter matches for members and for invited players, and there is a route for logging people who do not yet have a DUPR account. Doing this on the night, in a car park, is how sessions end up self-posted instead.
• Get names exactly right. The most common failure in this whole process is not the algorithm, it is "Mike S" not matching the Michael in your club list. Match your DillDraw player names to DUPR names before the first serve, not after.
• Fix the format for the whole night. One scoring system, one target score. Mixed formats make the results incomparable — see rally scoring vs side-out for which to pick.
• Decide about short games in advance. Timed rounds and games to 7 are excellent for keeping courts moving and are not the same thing as a full game. If your club submits short-format results, be consistent about it and say so in the event name.
• Ask the group. Not everyone wants their weeknight rated, and a rating that arrives as a surprise lands badly. Say it is a rated session when you invite people, and let anyone opt out without a fuss.

6. Getting the results out of the session

Run the night however you normally would. In DillDraw, once matches start completing, the Standings tab shows a "Log these to DUPR" card with two buttons:

• Copy results — puts the whole session on your clipboard, which is the useful one on a phone at the net post. Paste it straight into a spreadsheet.
• Download CSV — the same thing as a file, for when you are doing the admin on a laptop afterwards.

Either way you get one row per completed match, in the order they were played, with ten columns: match number, date, format, court, both players on each side, and both scores. Names come out exactly as you typed them, and a name with a comma or an apostrophe in it survives the trip intact.

7. Log the whole night, not the good half

The temptation, once a club is submitting results, is to leave out the round where the ringer turned up, or the game somebody lost 11-2 in front of everyone. Don't.

A rating built from selected results is worse than no rating, and it is worse specifically for the person being protected — they end up rated above where they play, drawn into games they lose, and quietly stop coming. Since DUPR measures against expectation rather than raw wins, a heavy loss to a much stronger pair costs far less than people fear. The honest full set is both easier to produce and kinder to everyone in it.

Frequently asked questions

Algorithm details, the rating range and the Reliability Score are as described by DUPR; match counts come from full rotating-partner rotations and session times assume 12-minute rounds with a 2-minute changeover. DUPR's club tools and submission rules change from time to time — check their current club documentation before setting a league up around them. DillDraw is not affiliated with DUPR.