PadelOS gives every player a skill rating — a number that reflects how strong they are. Clubs use it to balance open matches, set entry ranges for tournaments, and give players a sense of progress.
There are two methods a club can use to adjust ratings after a match: Fixed Rating and Dynamic Rating (Elo-style). Which one applies depends on the club's settings.
Fixed Rating
Every win or loss moves a player's rating by the same fixed amount, no matter who they played against. It doesn't matter if a player beats the club champion or the newest member — the rating change is the same.
Each club sets its own Win Amount and Loss Amount as part of their policy.
Example: Win = +0.05, Loss = −0.03
Player A is rated 4.20 and wins their match → new rating: 4.25
Player B is rated 3.80 and loses their match → new rating: 3.77
Simple, predictable, and not affected by opponent strength.
Note: some rating scales work in reverse, where a lower number means a better player. On those scales, a win still moves the player in the "better" direction — it just means the number goes down instead of up.
Dynamic Rating (Elo-style)
This method is borrowed from the classic Elo chess rating system. Instead of a fixed change, the amount a rating moves depends on how surprising the result was:
Beating a much stronger opponent → big rating gain
Beating a much weaker opponent (as expected) → small rating gain
Losing to a much stronger opponent (as expected) → small rating loss
Losing to a much weaker opponent → big rating loss
This keeps ratings fair and meaningful. A high rating reflects consistent performance against real competition, not just a high win count.
How it works, step by step
Step 1: Each team gets a combined rating. For doubles, a team's rating is the average of its two players' ratings. For singles, it's just the player's own rating.
Step 2: PadelOS estimates each team's chances of winning. Based on the gap between the two teams' ratings, the system works out how likely each team is to win before the match happens. The bigger the gap, the more lopsided the predicted odds.
Step 3: Ratings are adjusted after the match. Once the result comes in, each player's rating moves up or down depending on whether they won or lost, and how likely that result was in the first place. If a team performed better than expected, their ratings go up by more. If they performed worse than expected, ratings go down by more. If the result matched expectations, the change is small either way.
The K Factor
K is the setting that controls how much a player's rating can move after a single match. It's the one part of this system that's configurable per club.
In plain terms, K is a volatility dial. A higher K means ratings swing more dramatically after each match. A lower K means ratings move more gradually.
Higher K makes ratings feel more responsive. A few strong or weak performances move a player noticeably, which reflects recent form quickly. The trade-off is that ratings can feel less stable, with more visible swings match to match.
Lower K makes ratings more stable over time and less reactive to a single surprising result, better for clubs that want ratings to represent a long-term track record. The trade-off is that it takes longer for genuinely improving players to see their rating catch up.
PadelOS uses a default K of 0.275, which balances these two effects for most clubs. If a club would prefer a different balance, they can contact PadelOS support to request a custom K value.
Ascending and descending scales
Two flavours exist depending on which way the scale runs:
Ascending scale (higher number = better player, used by most padel rating scales): winning moves the number up, losing moves it down. Upsets produce bigger swings, as described above.
Descending scale (lower number = better player, handicap-style scales): the maths is mirrored so that winning still always moves the player in the "better" direction, just downward instead of upward.
Rating Limits
Regardless of which method is used, every rating system has a defined range: a lowest and a highest possible rating. No matter how large a calculated change works out to be, a player's rating is never allowed to move below the lowest tier or above the highest tier the club has defined for that sport.
How Competitive Open Matches Affect Rating
A player's rating only updates after competitive open matches — matches where both teams are genuinely playing to win. Friendly matches don't affect rating.
Example — Dynamic Rating
Before the match:
Team A | Rating | Team B | Rating |
Player 1 | 3.5 | Player 3 | 4.0 |
Player 2 | 4.0 | Player 4 | 3.0 |
Team ratings (the average of each pair):
Team A: 3.75
Team B: 3.50
Team A is slightly stronger on paper, so they're expected to win more often than not: roughly a 64% expected chance for Team A, and 36% for Team B.
The result: Team B wins. The underdog pulls off the upset.
Player | Before | After | Change |
Player 1 (Team A) | 3.50 | 3.32 | −0.18 |
Player 2 (Team A) | 4.00 | 3.82 | −0.18 |
Player 3 (Team B) | 4.00 | 4.18 | +0.18 |
Player 4 (Team B) | 3.00 | 3.18 | +0.18 |
Because Team B was the underdog and still won, both of its players gain a solid chunk of rating. Because Team A was expected to win and didn't, both lose a similar amount. Had Team A won as expected, the changes would have been much smaller for everyone.
Same match, different K values:
K Value | Change for Team B (winning underdogs) | Change for Team A (losing favourites) |
K = 0.10 | +0.06 | −0.06 |
K = 0.275 (default) | +0.18 | −0.18 |
K = 0.50 | +0.32 | −0.32 |
The match result is identical in all three cases. Only how strongly it affects ratings changes.
Example — Fixed Rating
Using the same match. The club has set Win = +0.05, Loss = −0.03.
Player | Before | After | Change |
Player 1 (Team A, lost) | 3.50 | 3.47 | −0.03 |
Player 2 (Team A, lost) | 4.00 | 3.97 | −0.03 |
Player 3 (Team B, won) | 4.00 | 4.05 | +0.05 |
Player 4 (Team B, won) | 3.00 | 3.05 | +0.05 |
No surprise factor. Every winner gets the same, every loser loses the same, regardless of opponent strength.
How Competitive Americano Tournaments Affect Rating
Americano tournaments also affect ratings when marked as competitive, using the same underlying logic described above. But Americano works differently from an open match: partners rotate every round, and the result is a point total rather than a single win or loss. The rating system accounts for this in two ways.
1. Every round uses the actual score, not just win or lose
In an open match, a result is a win, a loss, or a draw. In Americano, the system looks at how many points a player's team actually won in each round.
An 18-14 win and a 32-0 win are both wins, but they don't say the same thing about a player's performance, so they don't move the rating by the same amount.
2. Each round counts for less than a full open match
A single Americano round is much shorter than a full open match. If every round moved a rating as much as a full match, one tournament evening would swing ratings far more than intended.
So PadelOS reduces the impact of each individual round based on how many rounds the player completes. The more rounds played, the more spread out the total movement, with each additional round contributing a little less than the one before it.
In practice: a full evening of Americano ends up moving a player's rating by roughly the same total amount as one solid open match, not seven times as much.
Example — Dynamic Rating, Americano
8 players, 7 rounds, 32 points per round, default K of 0.275.
Player A, rated 4.20, plays all 7 rounds with a different partner each time.
Round | A's partner | A's team avg | Opponent avg | Expected | Score | What happened |
1 | B (3.80) | 4.00 | 4.40 | Underdogs | Won 18-14 | Gain — outperformed expectation |
2 | C (4.50) | 4.35 | 4.20 | Slight favourites | Won 20-12 | Small gain — won as expected |
3 | D (4.30) | 4.25 | 4.00 | Favourites | Lost 12-20 | Loss — unexpected result |
4 | E (3.60) | 3.90 | 4.15 | Underdogs | Drew 16-16 | Small gain — held their ground |
5 | F (4.80) | 4.50 | 4.20 | Favourites | Won 24-8 | Small gain — won as expected |
6 | G (4.10) | 4.15 | 3.85 | Favourites | Lost 14-18 | Small loss — narrow upset |
7 | H (3.90) | 4.05 | 4.65 | Big underdogs | Won 19-13 | Biggest gain of the night |
All seven rounds are added up and applied once at the end.
Player A: 4.20 → 4.23
A few things to notice:
Round 4: A's team only drew, but because they were the underdogs, it still counted as a small gain.
Round 6: A's team lost, but narrowly, and they were only slight favourites, so the loss is small.
Round 7: A's team won as big underdogs, so this single round produced the biggest rating gain of the evening.
This is the same expectation-versus-result logic used in open matches, just applied round by round.
Example — Fixed Rating, Americano
Same tournament. Club has set Win = +0.05, Loss = −0.03. Player A won 4 rounds, lost 2, drew 1.
In Fixed mode, round wins and losses are counted and then scaled down so the total tournament impact stays proportional to a single open match.
Player A: 4.20 → 4.22
The maths is simpler — no opponent strength considered — but the same principle applies: a whole tournament doesn't swing a rating more than it should.
What Club Owners and Trainers Can Configure
Setting | What it does |
Rating Method | Choose between Fixed Rating and Dynamic Rating (Elo-style) for each rating system |
K Factor (Dynamic only) | Controls how much a single match can move a rating. Default 0.275 |
Win Amount / Loss Amount (Fixed only) | The exact amount a win or loss moves a rating |
Affects Rating | Turn rating updates on or off per tournament, same as marking an open match as friendly |
Tournament Rating Weight | Make a tournament count for more or less than normal, for example a club championship versus a casual social |
Minimum Rounds to Qualify | How many rounds a player must complete before the tournament affects their rating at all |
Things to Keep in Mind
Ratings update once the tournament is complete, not after each individual round. Players see one rating change at the end, not a rating that jumps around during the evening.
All rounds are calculated against each player's rating at the start of the tournament. Round 7 doesn't see the movement caused by rounds 1 to 6.
A player who wins the whole tournament isn't automatically boosted beyond their round results. The rating change comes entirely from how each round went, not from final placement.
If an admin corrects a score after the tournament has finished, the rating update recalculates automatically.
A player who sits out a round due to an odd number of players simply isn't rated on that round. It doesn't count against them.
The Technical Details
For clubs or players who want to see the exact maths behind the Dynamic Rating examples:
Team Rating: Team Rating = (Player 1 Rating + Player 2 Rating) / 2
Expected Chance of Winning: Team A Expectation = 1 / (1 + 10^(Team B Rating − Team A Rating))
Updated Rating After an Open Match: New Rating = Old Rating + K × (Result − Expectation)
Where Result = 1 if the player's team won, 0 if they lost.
Updated Rating After an Americano Tournament: The same formula is applied per round, using actual points scored (points won ÷ total points) instead of 1 or 0. K is reduced per round based on how many rounds the player completed, so the total tournament impact stays comparable to one open match.
For rating tiers, ranges, and other club-level settings, see the Club Policies article.