Host guide
How to run open play with Devlab Pickleball
16 steps, from an empty session to downloaded results. Free, with no sign-up for you or your players. Google sign-in is only for emailing yourself a DUPR export.
Start a session
Open "Start a free session", name it, choose how many courts, what games go to (11, 15 or 21) and how players are matched. No account needed. A short welcome message for players is filled in for you: change it, or clear it, now or any time from the console.
Choose a game mode
Every mode keeps rotation fair: whoever has played the fewest games goes on next, and it mixes groups so you meet different players. The mode only changes who plays with and against whom. Paddle stack rotates partners. Winners play winners sends winners against winners and losers against losers, with last game’s partners split up. By standing matches players close in today’s standings. Balanced teams evens out skill. Switch any time from the console; the switch applies to the next game. A keep-together or keep-apart rule can hold a player back or bring a partner on early.
Add players
Paste your list or upload a CSV. Numbering, emoji and duplicates are removed. Or show the check-in QR from Share: players type their own name, and a skill if they like, and join level with whoever has played least. Turn check-in off any time.
Save your host link, share the board
Your host link controls the session; keep it. Show players the QR code for the view-only board. If you link the session to Google for a DUPR export, My sessions reopens it as host on any device.
Put the board on a TV
Open the TV board from Share on a venue screen. Every court, who is up next, the standings and the fairness numbers, in type big enough to read across the hall, with the check-in code in the corner.
Start the proposed game
Each free court shows the next four players. Tap Start, or tap Edit to swap anyone first. Players never belong to a court: whichever court frees first gets the next match.
Tap the result
When a game ends, tap Game over, pick the winner and the losing score. The winning score fills in, and the court gets its next match.
Hand a court to a captain
From More, make a captain link for a court and send it to a helper. On their own phone they can start that court’s games and save, undo or fix its results, nothing else. Turn the link off and it stops working at once.
Late arrivals and breaks
Add players any time; they start level with whoever has played least. Put someone on a break and they are skipped until you bring them back.
Keep friends together, or apart
On the Players tab, set two players to always partner, or never share a court. Every way of matching keeps it; if no game fits, the court waits and says why. The fairness panel shows the games spread, the longest wait and repeat partners as you go.
Or run a tournament
Pick Tournament when you start. Choose round robin, pools then a bracket (the top 2 of each pool go through), single elimination or double elimination. Pairs are made at random, balanced by skill (strongest with weakest) or in list order, and seeded at random, by skill or in your own order.
Edit the draw, then start
Generate the draw and change anything: swap players between pairs, swap two pairs, move a pair to another pool, or change who plays whom. A change that would break the draw is refused with the reason. Start locks it; after that you can substitute a player in a pair that is off court, or swap opponents between games in the same round that have not started, where the draw placed both pairs, such as first-round games. A pair that got there by a result moves only when you change that result.
Courts fill from the draw
Whichever court frees next is offered the next game the draw allows, and you tap Start. The board on every phone shows the pools, the bracket and the pair standings; the TV shows the standings, recent results and the next games. Later rounds fill in as results are saved, and the winners get a moment in the spotlight.
Fix a mistake
Undo a save for 2 minutes, or edit a result later. Standings update straight away. In a tournament, a result cannot change once the game it feeds has started; change that game first.
Send games to DUPR
From More, choose Email me the DUPR export. This is the only step that asks anyone to sign in with Google, and only you, the host, can take it. Link the session to your Google account (once per session), enter your DUPR Club ID (once, for every session) and add any missing DUPR IDs. Every game with a valid score (no tie, a team reached 6) and four different DUPR IDs goes into a CSV emailed to your Google address, with each game left out and why. Upload it in DUPR under Matches → Add Matches → Import Matches via CSV; your DUPR account must be a Club Director or Organizer of the club. Up to 5 exports per session a day. Delete your account any time from the same screen.
Finish up
End the session and the board, the console and the TV show the final results: a podium for the top three, everyone else in order, and who did not play. Share results sends the standings and the board link from any phone. Download the results as a CSV too. Everything is deleted 7 days after the last change, or delete it yourself any time.
Tournaments, the same way
The same free session, with a draw instead of a rotation. Captain links, the TV board, the results CSV and the 7-day deletion all work the same.