Women's Tennis Draw Rules

When planning a women's tennis tournament, the creation of the draw or how players will face each other in the event is an important aspect. Aside from adhering to any local, state or national rules, the proper administration of the draw will ensure that all players will have a fair chance during competition.

  1. Player Entry Guidelines

    • Before creating a women's tennis draw, tournament organizers must announce the event and allow enough time for players to enter. Depending on the size of the event and its location, the number of players allowed may either be open-ended, which will allow for as many players as possible, or closed-ended, meaning only a finite amount of spots are available.

    Wildcard Entries

    • Depending on the location of the event, some tournaments may choose to accept "wildcard" entrants. These are players accepted into the main draw based on previous results, geographic ties, or if tournaments organizers have a previous agreement with another association or a group from another area seeking to promote its players.

    Player Seeding

    • Once the size of the draw is set, seedings will prevent top players from meeting each other in early rounds of the event. The size of the event determines the number of seeds, but it is usually an even number--4, 8, 12, 16, etc. Seedings are determined by a player's previous results, a player's ranking and/or other factors determined in advance by tournament officials. If a seeded player drops out of the event before play begins, tournament officials can decided to change the order of seeding, move another player up in seeding to fill in the gap, or leave the seeding intact.

    Draw Selection, Seeded Players

    • Draw Selection - Unseeded Players

      Usually, a few days before the tournament starts, a draw ceremony is held. This is where each player's name is selected and placed on the draw board. The top-seeded player is placed at the top of the draw and the second-highest seed is placed at the very bottom of the draw so that the top seed and second seed, if they win all of their early rounds, would only meet in the final match.

      The third seed is next chosen, and randomly assigned to either the top seed's section of the draw or the second seed's section of the draw. The same is done for the fourth seed. For example, the third seed could fall in the second seed's section and the fourth seed could fall in the top seed's section or vice-versa. But the third and fourth seeds, should they win all of their early round matches, would only meet the top or second seed in the semifinals.

      Any remaining seeded players are then chosen at random to fill out the rest of the brackets. If there are eight seeds, the eighth seeded player could meet the top seed or second seed in a quarterfinal match. For example, the #1 seed could play the #8 seed, #2 could play #7, #3 could play #6, and #4 could play #5.

    Draw Selection, Unseeded Players

    • Once the tennis draw assigns the seeded players, any remaining players left in the event are considered unseeded. Their names are drawn at random and placed one at a time in the remaining slots on the draw board until the field is complete.

    Early Round Byes

    • Top-seeded players in the tennis draw may be given "byes" in their first round. A "bye" is where a player does not have to play anyone and thus advances to the next round automatically. This is done when a tennis draw has an uneven number of players, or it is given as a courtesy to top players based on their participation in the event or if they are traveling from a previous event and need time to recover before playing in the new event.