Printable 18-Player Round Robin Pickleball Schedule
Eighteen players run four courts with two sitting, and eighteen rounds even it out: sixteen games and two byes each, the byes nine rounds apart. Every player partners sixteen of the other seventeen with no pairing repeated, and faces every other player once or twice. The one person you never partner with is the one who shares both of your byes. Print it, save it as a PDF, or skip the paper and let the free DillDraw round robin generator run the same rotation with your own names and live standings.
Fill any of these in and the schedule below updates automatically — leave any blank to keep its letter. Saved on this device so it's still here next time.
Eighteen: four courts, two chairs
Eighteen people make 153 possible pairs. Four courts produce eight partnerships a round, so eighteen rounds offer 144 slots — nine short. Those nine missing pairs land as evenly as they possibly can: every player is short exactly one partner, and no player is short two.
The partner you miss is the person you rest with. The same two players share both bye rounds, nine rounds apart, and a pair sitting together can never be on a court together. It costs nothing and it is easy to explain at the gate: the one person you will not play with is the one you are sitting with.
Nine rounds is the natural half. Stop there and every player has played exactly eight games with eight different partners and sat exactly once — a complete, even session that happens to be half a chart. Go the full eighteen and it doubles cleanly.
Opponents are covered in full: every pair of players meets at least once, and no pair more than twice, however far into the chart you go.
Groups this size rarely land on the same number twice. If a nineteenth turns up, the 19-player chart takes over; drop to seventeen and the 17-player chart is the one where every pair partners exactly once.
If someone doesn't show, or a nineteenth turns up
Down to seventeen before you start, take the seventeen-player schedule: one round shorter, one sitting instead of two, sixteen games each, and every pair partnered exactly once. A no-show improves this sheet.
A nineteenth adds a third chair. Nineteen players sit three a round over nineteen rounds, still with sixteen games each, and each player misses two partners instead of one.
When someone leaves mid-session, either of the two sitting players can replace them for that round. Nothing else in the rotation needs to move.
Eighteen on four courts stops cleanly at round nine, where everyone has eight games and one bye. Work and charity pickleball tournaments covers building an event around a natural stopping point instead of running the clock out.
Eighteen people is a full room. Organizing a pickleball mixer covers the run of show for a group this size, where announcements and court changes eat more time than anyone expects.
DillDraw is a free round robin generator for any player count — type in your real names, tap to enter scores, and standings update automatically. No account, no install.
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Schedule generated and verified programmatically for balanced partnerships — not hand-typed. Player names above are placeholders (A, B, C…); swap in your own group's names before you print.