The fairest way to rank players in a friend group is a rating system like ELO, where every confirmed result moves your number based on who you beat and how surprising it was. It copes with people playing different amounts and different opponents, which every real friend group does. If your group plays a fixed schedule where everyone meets everyone, a simple points table works too. Win percentage, the default, is the worst option: it rewards whoever picks the softest opponents. Whatever you choose, three rules matter more than the maths: both players confirm every score, singles and doubles are ranked separately, and nobody appears on the table until they've played a minimum number of matches. Rackt does all of this automatically for private tennis and padel groups, but here's how each method works so you can pick one with your eyes open.
The five ways groups actually rank players
Most friend groups end up using one of these, usually without realising they chose.
| Method | How it works | Fair when… | Breaks when… |
|---|---|---|---|
| Win percentage | Wins ÷ matches played | Everyone plays everyone equally | People choose their opponents |
| Points table | 3 for a win, 1 for a close loss, 0 otherwise | Fixed round robin schedule | Someone plays twice as often |
| Ladder | Challenge the player above, swap places if you win | Small, active groups | People stop issuing challenges |
| Round robin standings | Everyone plays everyone once per season | Season-based groups | Someone misses three weeks |
| ELO rating | Points move by expected vs actual result | Any schedule, any group size | Results aren't logged honestly |
Win percentage: simple, and quietly unfair
Win percentage feels objective because it's a number. It isn't. A player who only books courts with the two newest members can post 85% and sit top of the table while everyone privately knows he'd lose to half the group. It also over-rewards small samples: 3 wins from 3 matches beats 14 from 20, which nobody believes.
Use it as a stat, not a ranking.
Points tables: great for leagues, shaky for friends
A points table, three for a win and maybe a bonus for winning in straight sets, is what most club box leagues use. It's transparent and easy to argue about in a good way. The catch is that it assumes everyone plays the same number of matches against the same opponents. That's true for a structured round-robin season. It's rarely true for a WhatsApp group where whoever's free on Thursday plays.
If you go this route, rank by points per match rather than total points, and set fixtures in advance.
Ladders: fun until week three
A ladder turns ranking into a game: challenge someone above you, win, take their spot. It's excellent for motivation and terrible at surviving holidays, injuries and people who sit on the top rung refusing challenges. We've covered how to stop that happening in how to run a tennis ladder with friends.
ELO: the one that handles real life
ELO gives everyone the same starting number. Before each match it calculates who should win based on the rating gap; after the match, the winner takes points from the loser. Beat a stronger player and you take a lot. Beat a weaker one and you take crumbs. That single idea solves the problems above: it doesn't matter how often you play, and it doesn't matter who you pick, because easy wins pay almost nothing.
The full mechanics, plus how it compares with UTR and the World Tennis Number, are in tennis ELO rating for amateurs. For padel and doubles-specific quirks, read padel ELO ratings explained. The original system comes from chess, and the Elo rating system page covers the history if you need ammunition for the group chat.
Running ELO in a spreadsheet is possible. Keeping it updated after every Thursday session is how spreadsheets die. Rackt calculates it for each private group as soon as both players confirm the score, free on iOS and Android.
Rules that matter more than the method
Whichever system you choose, these decide whether people trust the table:
Both sides confirm the score. One-sided logging is how a 6–4 loss becomes "didn't really count, I was warming up." A ranking is only as good as its inputs.
Separate singles and doubles. In doubles your result depends on your partner. Blending it into a singles rank punishes whoever got paired with the weakest player.
Set a minimum number of matches. Hide anyone with fewer than five or so results. Otherwise someone wins their only match and spends a month at number one.
Decide on seasons. Resetting every few months gives newer players a shot and stops the table fossilising. Keeping all-time history alongside means nobody's best season is lost.
Agree on what counts. Full sets only, or do one-set matches and match tiebreaks count too? Decide once, before the first disputed result.
What a good group ranking shows
A rank is a single line. The interesting stuff sits around it: your head-to-head record against each person, current form and streaks, and how your rating has moved over time. That context is what turns a table into rivalries, and rivalries are what keep a group booking courts. It's also what separates a proper group tracker from a scoring app, as we unpacked in the best app to track tennis matches with friends.
FAQ
What is the fairest way to rank players in a tennis group?
An ELO-style rating is the fairest for most friend groups because it accounts for who you played, not just whether you won. It works even when people play different numbers of matches against different opponents, which is how most informal groups operate.
Should we rank by wins or by win percentage?
Neither works well on its own. Total wins rewards whoever plays most often, and win percentage rewards whoever picks the easiest opponents. Both are useful stats to show alongside a rating, not replacements for one.
How many matches before a ranking is reliable?
Roughly ten to twenty matches per player before a rating settles. Until then, early wins and losses swing things a lot, so hide or flag players below a minimum match count.
Can we rank padel and tennis players in the same table?
Keep them separate. The skills overlap but don't transfer cleanly, and padel is almost always doubles. Separate tables per sport and format give rankings everyone actually agrees with.
Pick a system, confirm every score, and let the table settle the debate. Download Rackt free and your group's ranking builds itself.
Rackt: the table never lies, even when your mates do.