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How to run an Americano padel tournament: a step-by-step guide
Americano is the club tournament everyone loves: everybody plays with everybody, nobody gets knocked out, and two hours later there is a winner. This guide answers the practical questions one by one — how many players, how many courts, how many points per match, how the draw works and how the ranking is calculated — and covers the Mexicano variant too.
What is Americano, and why is it everywhere?
In a classic knockout, fixed pairs play each other and the losers go home; whoever loses in the first round spends the rest of the evening watching. Americano turns that on its head: players compete as individuals, every round is played with a different partner and against different opponents, every match runs to a fixed number of points (24, for example), and every point a player wins goes onto their personal tally. At the end, the player with the most points wins.
The reason it caught on is simple: even in a group of mixed ability everyone plays the same number of matches, the strongest player is partnered with the weakest one a round later, all the matches finish at the same time and no court is ever empty.
1. Players and courts
The golden rule: the number of players should be four times the number of courts. Four players on one court, 8 on two, 12 on three, 16 on four. That way everyone plays every round and nobody sits out.
| Players | Courts | Rounds for everyone to partner everyone |
|---|---|---|
| 4 | 1 | 3 |
| 8 | 2 | 7 |
| 12 | 3 | 11 |
| 16 | 4 | 15 |
The full set of rounds (n−1) is not always played; 11 rounds with 12 players takes a long evening. Clubs usually plan 6–8 rounds and cut it off by the clock. If the player count is not a multiple of four, some players sit out each round (a bye); the usual practice is to give the resting player either the round’s average score or a fixed number of points — announce which one you are using up front.
2. How many points per match?
In an Americano match points are counted 1, 2, 3…, not 15-30-40, and the match ends when the combined points reach the target. Common targets:
- 16 points — quick, 8–10 minutes; for big groups with many rounds.
- 21 points — the most common medium length.
- 24 points — divides evenly by 4, so it fits the serving rotation most neatly; 12–15 minutes.
- 32 points — one court, few players, a long evening.
Note: with a target of 24, the match ends at 13-11 (13+11=24). Play continues until the two teams’ points add up to the target — not until one team reaches 24. A draw is possible (12-12), and both sides are credited with 12.
To estimate the length of a round: an average point takes 35–40 seconds, so a 24-point match with warm-up and court changes is about 15 minutes. Six rounds ≈ an hour and a half.
3. The serving rule
The serve changes hands every 4 points (every 2 points at some clubs). The two players on the serving team serve in turn. The serve is underarm and diagonal, just as in regular padel, with two serves per point. On the 4-point pattern, 24 points make exactly six serving blocks, which is why 24 is the popular choice. Most tournaments do not change ends; if you do, it is a single change at the halfway mark (the 12th point).
4. The draw: who plays with whom, and against whom?
The schedule is the heart of an Americano. The goal is for everyone to play with a new partner every round and, where possible, against new opponents. The classic schedule for 8 players on 2 courts looks like this (players numbered 1–8):
| Round | Court 1 | Court 2 |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1+2 vs 3+4 | 5+6 vs 7+8 |
| 2 | 1+3 vs 5+7 | 2+4 vs 6+8 |
| 3 | 1+4 vs 6+7 | 2+3 vs 5+8 |
| 4 | 1+5 vs 2+6 | 3+7 vs 4+8 |
| 5 | 1+6 vs 3+8 | 2+5 vs 4+7 |
| 6 | 1+7 vs 2+8 | 3+5 vs 4+6 |
| 7 | 1+8 vs 4+5 | 2+7 vs 3+6 |
Over seven rounds player 1 plays with seven different partners, and so does everyone else. Schedules for 12 and 16 players exist too, but they get hard to manage by hand; if you are running it on paper, print the schedule in advance and give each player a number. Drawing the numbers at random before the tournament starts settles the “why am I always with him” question before it is asked.
5. Ranking and tie-breaks
The ranking is by total points won; winning a match earns nothing extra. The winner of a 13-11 match is credited with 13 and the loser with 11 — which is why in Americano “every point counts, even in a match you are losing”, and people fight for the last point.
Tie-break order (announce it at the start of the tournament):
- Matches won (a draw counts as half a match).
- Point difference: points won minus points lost.
- Head-to-head (if the players faced each other; matches where they were partners do not count).
- Still level: a single golden point, or a draw of lots.
If you credit a fixed score for a bye, apply it at most once per player; someone who sits out too often can end up unfairly ahead.
Mexicano: pairing by the standings
Mexicano does not fix the draw in advance; after each round it pairs players according to the current standings: the first round is random, and from then on the players ranked 1st and 4th partner up against 2nd and 3rd, with the 5–8 and 9–12 groups doing the same. The result: levels sort themselves out within a few rounds, matches become even, and nobody loses 24-0. Scoring and the serving rule are the same as Americano. For groups with a wide spread of ability, Mexicano; if everyone knows each other and the point is that “everybody plays with everybody”, Americano.
There are pairs versions as well: in Team Americano / Team Mexicano the pairs are fixed and only the opponents rotate; points are credited to the pair. Handy for club leagues.
6. How the day runs
- Registration and numbers: hand out player numbers and put the schedule up on the wall.
- A short briefing (2 minutes): the points target, the serving rule, whether draws are possible, how ties are broken, how long a round lasts.
- Start the round, all courts at the same time. If a match finishes early, those players wait; when time is up, any unfinished match closes at its current score (say this in the briefing too).
- Collect the scores: one player from each court reports the result to the desk; update the table and announce the courts for the next round.
- Final and prize: after the last round, announce the top three. A small prize and a photo make sign-ups for the next tournament a lot easier.
Paper or app?
Paper works for 8 players; beyond 12, two things start to break: adding up the standings by hand every round (error-prone, and players crowd around the desk) and working out the Mexicano pairings from the table. Tournament mode exists for exactly this: the organiser sets up the tournament, players join from their phones with a 6-digit code, scores are entered courtside with a single tap, the standings update instantly and spectators follow the table live at scoresay.com/t/CODE. Americano, Mexicano and their team versions, 16/21/24/32 points, serve changes every 2 or 4 points, draws and tie-break rules all come ready to use. A one-off Americano match (no tournament, four friends on one court) is among the ScoreSay app’s match types as well.