Badminton Grand Prix Series Software
Five Saturdays, five draws, one ranking that adds up the places
A badminton Grand Prix is a run of one-day tournaments joined by a ranking built from finishing places. National associations do it with their ranking lists, and clubs and regional associations run smaller versions. In JudgeMate each stop is an event with its own draws, and an event series turns places into points: 100 for first by default, 20 for every place below tenth, only the best N tournaments counted and a final worth ×1.5. Which places reach the series depends on the draw format.
How a national association runs a Grand Prix, and what a club borrows
The Polish Badminton Association (PZBad) is a handy reference. Its sport regulations in force from 1 September 2025 put Super Grand Prix tournaments at rank 3 and Open Grand Prix at rank 4, with one tournament of each kind in every half of the season.
The PZBad ranking list behind those tournaments works like this:
- five separate lists, one per event: women's singles, men's singles, women's doubles, men's doubles and mixed doubles, each kept per age category;
- on the doubles lists players are ranked individually;
- a place from 1 to 64 earns points that depend on the tournament's rank;
- a player's total is the sum of their 6 best tournaments within a one-year period;
- when the draw format produces shared places, everyone in that range gets the points for its middle place, rounded up.
A club or regional Grand Prix keeps that shape at a smaller scale. Think six Saturdays, the same events at every stop, a points table anyone can read in a minute, and the winner crowned at the last tournament.
JudgeMate does not reproduce the PZBad points table or its tournament classes. You get a series with your own place-to-points map, and you decide how many results count.
Each stop: one draw per event, seeds taken from the series
Every Grand Prix stop is its own event in JudgeMate, with one category per event: men's singles, women's singles, the two doubles and mixed. A badminton category starts in singles mode and has a switch for doubles. Singles draws come as knockout, round robin, or groups plus knockout.
Match length is set per draw with Points per set (11, 15, 21 or 25) and Sets to win (1, 2 or 3), where a set is what badminton calls a game. Until 3 January 2027 the BWF standard is the best of three games to 21. From 4 January 2027 it becomes the best of three games to 15. A series that runs across New Year should state which distance each stop uses.
Seeds from the series. In singles the seed is the start number, in doubles it is the Seed field. Seeded players keep protected slots and everyone else is drawn. JudgeMate does not copy the series ranking into the draw, so type the seeds from the current ranking before you generate it. PZBad seeds 2 players in draws of 3 to 7 entries, 4 in 8 to 23, 8 in 24 to 63 and 16 from 64 entries, a scale that also works for club fields.
Rest between matches. PZBad gives players 30 minutes of rest, which may be cut to 15 for a player entered in three events. The court scheduler takes a minimum rest of 0 to 120 minutes per side. A player in singles and in a doubles pair counts as two sides, so check people entered in several events yourself.
Which places each draw sends to the series
The series reads finishing places from each draw, and the format decides how many places exist. That choice decides who scores in your Grand Prix at all.
Badminton knockouts traditionally have no third-place match. Under the BWF General Competition Regulations (15.4) a player who loses a match does not play again in that event, so both losing semi-finalists finish third. JudgeMate gives each of them the points for 3rd place. PZBad's regulations award the points for the middle place of the shared range in such a case, rounded up.
If every entrant should collect points at every stop, play each category as a round robin. With a bigger field, split it into level categories (A and B, for example) and give each level its own series.
| Draw format | Places sent to the series | What it means for the ranking |
|---|---|---|
| Round robin | Every player, first to last | Everyone scores. 8 players means 28 matches. |
| Groups plus knockout | 1, 2 and the losing semi-finalists, once the final is confirmed | Import only after the final: before it, the series takes the combined group table. |
| Knockout | 1, 2, then 3 and 3, or 3 and 4 after a third-place match | Players beaten before the semi-finals get no series points. |
| Americano or mexicano (doubles mode) | Every player, ranked individually | Partners rotate, so it suits a social doubles stop. |
From places to series points, with a worked example
Default map. Places 1 to 10 earn 100, 80, 65, 55, 45, 40, 36, 32, 29 and 26 points. Every place below tenth earns 20. You can change each value, from 0 to 999, when you create the series and later in its settings. The ranking is then recalculated from every imported stop.
Best results only. Count best rounds only keeps each player's N highest scores, the same idea as the PZBad sum of the 6 best tournaments. A missed Saturday is then just one of the results that would have been dropped anyway.
Final ×1.5. One stop can be marked as the final when you link it, and its points are multiplied by 1.5.
Ties. Equal totals are split by each player's best single place.
A series holds up to 100 tournaments. The example is a men's singles series of five stops, each an 8-player round robin, with the best 4 results counted and stop 5 as the final. x means absent, F marks the final.
| Player | Places, stops 1–5 | Series points per stop | Best 4 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ravi | 2 · 1 · 1 · x · F2 | 80 · 100 · 100 · x · 120 | 120 + 100 + 100 + 80 | 400 |
| Tom | 1 · 3 · 2 · 4 · F1 | 100 · 65 · 80 · 55 · 150 | 150 + 100 + 80 + 65 | 395 |
| Sam | 3 · 2 · 3 · 1 · F6 | 65 · 80 · 65 · 100 · 60 | 100 + 80 + 65 + 65 | 310 |
| Lee | 7 · 8 · x · 6 · F7 | 36 · 32 · x · 40 · 54 | 54 + 40 + 36 + 32 | 162 |
What JudgeMate does not do for a Grand Prix
- No link to PZBad or BWF ranking lists. The series ranking lives in JudgeMate. Federation tournaments and their ranking points stay in the federation's own system.
- No payments. Entry fees are not collected in the app.
- Doubles are ranked as pairs. A pair whose players both have accounts is matched across stops by those two accounts. Change one partner and the series sees a new pair. PZBad ranks doubles players individually, so a club that wants that has to count it outside JudgeMate.
- One series per list. Linking a whole tournament with all its categories puts men's and women's singles places into one ranking. Add each category to the series of its own list.
- Names have to match. Players are matched across stops by account, otherwise by name, ignoring case, accents and extra spaces. Someone who registers with an account at one stop and is typed in by hand at the next becomes two rows.
- Import is a step you take. Places reach the series when you press Import results, not live during the tournament.
Setting up the Grand Prix in JudgeMate
1. Create the series. Open create for badminton and choose Event series. Name it after the list and season, for example "Men's singles Grand Prix 2026/27", make it public, then set the points map, Count best rounds only and Final counts ×1.5. Repeat for every list you run.
2. Create each stop as an event. Add one category per event, choose round robin if everyone should get a place, set the match length, and enter seeds from the current ranking.
3. Add the category to its series. In the category menu choose Add to a series ranking and pick the series. The category becomes a round of that series.
4. Mark the final. For the last stop, link from the series side instead: Rounds, Link an event, switch on Mark as final (×1.5), then choose the category on the round card.
5. Import and share. When the draw is finished, press Import results on the round card. The public series page shows the ranking, so players check their position on their phones between stops.
Running a single stop well
One tournament day (entries, courts, rest times, the referee QR) is covered in how to organise a badminton tournament. Formats and their trade-offs are in badminton tournament formats explained. To print a single draw without accounts, use the bracket generator. Everything else JudgeMate offers for the sport is on the badminton page.
Set up your event
Free for organizers. No athlete cap. No commission on registrations. See badminton features · Organizer guide
Other scenarios
Badminton club championship
One day with singles, doubles and mixed: entries, seeding, a shared court schedule with rest time and results on a public page.
Badminton social doubles night
20+ players on 4 to 6 courts: mixicano for mixed pairs, fair sit-outs, rounds to 21 and a personal table on every phone.