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Is Americano / Mexicano the default tournament format where you play padel?

922 commentsu/Whole_Connection70167w ago

Maybe I’m wrong but it feels like Americano and Mexicano are kinda taking over amateur padel tournaments. Here in Ukraine it’s growing fast. Almost every club around me runs Americano nights. Mexicano too. It’s super social, you rotate partners, no one sits out too long, and even beginners don’t feel totally destroyed. I actually like that it’s competitive but still chill. Not super serious, but not random either. And it’s way easier to organize than classic bracket tournaments tbh. How is it in your country or city? Do clubs mostly run Americano/Mexicano or is it more traditional knockout style? Curious what the “standard” looks like outside Ukraine.

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Comments (22)

u/Environmental-Path327w ago

In Portugal we do "non stop" two types random people team and all against eachother. Or partner same style.

u/Whole_Connection7016OP7w ago

Ohhh ok I think I get it now. So it’s like non-stop rotation, no fixed rounds, just constant games going? That actually sounds super fun. When you say “all against each other” do you mean individual ranking, like everyone collects their own points no matter the partner? And the other format is fixed partners the whole time? I kinda like the non-stop idea tbh. Feels more dynamic and less waiting around. Do you feel it’s more social or still pretty competitive over there?

u/GGBeavis7w ago

Not OP, but the ranking is for the pair, not individual. Basically every 15min or 20min you rotate opponents, across 2 hours. To find the winner, some clubs add up the points of all games; others do a group phase + knock out phase. There is also a variation of this, translated as “Up and Down”, where you go “up” a court number if you win, and go down if you lose. Whoever wins the game in court 1 when the 2 hours are done, wins the tourney. These are social tournaments btw

u/kinetic3337w ago

In Finland we have a lot of Master of the courts. That applies where the venue has three or more courts. The starting court is randomized (you pick a playing card etc) or based on your Playtomic rating. Courts are numbered from low to high. In a span of two hours we play 15 minutes time restricted games with golden points. If you win, you move up a court. If you lose, you move down. You always switch sides with your previous partner. The last game on court 1 is a final and usually there is a small prize for winners, like ball tubes. Super fun!

u/mercynuts7w ago

In UK we call it king of the court format is exactly the same

u/jasim_7w ago

This is the most common one as it does really shuffle the players not that it always guarantees better players going up and other way around. Americanos are also played in Finland but I think this one is the most played in terms of events that are not like competitive environment.

u/mercynuts7w ago

I'd say In the uk that americanos and mexicanos are the most popular but there are other standard doubles competitions too. The venues themselves tend to prefer the americanos and mexicanos (probably easier to organise) whereas the 3rd party organisations tend to run a lot more competitions for pairs to compete

u/a-vibe-coder7w ago

What does Americano and Mexicano means? I play both in the US and Mexico and I haven’t noticed any difference.

u/Whole_Connection7016OP7w ago

Oh yeah, good point 😅 It’s not about USA vs Mexico actually. Americano and Mexicano are just tournament formats. In Americano everyone rotates partners and you usually just count total points at the end. In Mexicano it’s also rotation, but after each round you get regrouped based on your current score, so it becomes more “balanced” as you go. So the names are kinda misleading tbh. It’s not a country thing, it’s just the structure of the event. How do they usually run it where you play? Do they reshuffle based on ranking mid-tournament or is it just random rotation?

u/a-vibe-coder7w ago

Interesting, I never played those formats. We usually play 4 different formats: 1) Teams get paired beforehand, on players choice. Players without partners get paired randomly. This are usually how ranked tournaments work. This can be either in play-off format or round-robin + play-offs (with or without groups). 2) teams get paired based on rankings to make balanced teams. In this one you don’t split teams during the tournament. This one is popular when there’s big gap between skills. 3) each game teams get paired based on previous score by the algorithm, whatever that means , but I noticed that if I lose I get paired with a lower ranked player, opposite when winning. The winner is who wins the most matches, total games is tie breaker. (I think this is your Americano and Mexicano format, we just use a app that makes the pairing, you just have 2 different ways of pairing teams after games) 4) the most popular where I have played: “ladder”. Initially, You get paired randomly or by ranking, then You split on every game, you go up or down to the next court. Depending on if you lose or win. There’s a top court and bottom court.

u/DV_G7w ago

In Argentina americano tournaments refer to 1 set tournaments. You play groups and playoffs. But it's with your partner. You pay the fee and participate. What you're mentioning for us would be "Cancha abierta/open court" where the organizer sets the level, people sign up and you go around playing sets vs different people, but it's not a tournament per Se and it's taken more socially. Americanos are the main tournaments for Argentina because you run them in 4/6hs and you're done

u/Whole_Connection7016OP7w ago

We kind of went through the same evolution here. We started with 8 people, 2 courts, just simple Americano between friends. Super chill. Then we grew to 12 and realized levels were all over the place, so we switched to Mexicano. That format just makes more sense when skills are different, because each new round is based on the current standings. So stronger players naturally face stronger players as it goes on. Now we’re at 16 people, 4 courts, and honestly we could fill 20 easily. We usually fill 16 in like 30 minutes and some people don’t even get a spot. Fifth court is coming soon, so 20 players is next. What I really like about Mexicano is that we adapt the tournament to the time we have, not the other way around. It’s not “2 hours fixed bracket and done”. It’s flexible. We also use an app with a rating system that updates after every tournament. And now that we’re bigger, we split into two leagues. Best players from League B grind points to catch or overtake the lowest players in League A. So there’s this constant tension of “who am I going to be playing with next week?” It honestly makes it way more addictive than a normal one-off tournament 😅 Do you guys also run some kind of ranking or promotion system, or is it more casual?

u/DV_G7w ago

For tournaments no. You sign up for the tournament of your level (here it goes from C8 amateur to c1 which is pro players, like Ex A1 b tier players). For open courts it's more like 2/3 levels like c4/c5 or c6/c7 etc. With more people coming and going. Mexicano sounds fun but makes a more social thing more competitive. And for that we already have the tournaments

u/andriask7w ago

What app do you use for the rating system that updated? Right now I manually input the score into Google sheet for a 2+ month league tracking.

u/nsm17w ago

Florida, US. I've experienced the following * Americano - 8 players; 2 courts. Play a total of 24 points each round (each player serves 4 times). Play with everyone in the group. Not many places offer this format * Round robin (two or more groups of 4 pairs) followed by split single elimination main draw (top 2 from each group) and back draw (bottom 2 from each group). 1 set matches. Most common format here * Mexicano/champion of the court - 8-20 players, 2-5 courts. Play a total of 5 games each round, Golden point. 7 rounds total

u/JohnSourcer7w ago

Americano's etc are good for making clubs money. That is it. When you're new to the sport they're fun.

u/Flatric7w ago

In our local club there’s a golden court tournament every Saturday. You are initially paired by Playtomic score and every game is 20 minutes. Let’s say you and your partner won, so you go one court up. The team that lost goes one court down. No you and your partner and the other team (that was initially 2 courts higher than you but lost) do rock paper scissors. The two winners from rock paper scissors will now play against the 2 losers. On the top 3 courts you can earn points by winning and staying in the top 3 and whoever gets the most points will win a can of padelballs

u/spikefly7w ago

In Portugal, it’s all Americano or regular non-stop most of the time. Then some standard tournaments, but those are less popular it seems. I don’t even know what Mexicano is.

u/Stup2plending7w ago

Our are either Americano, Round Robin, or King of the Court which they usually do group play a la Champions League style

u/1092677w ago

The only Americano I know of is a coffee...

u/dandaka7w ago

Depends on the level of players (Portugal), and amount of time available, and number of players. 1. Individuals remixed 15-20 min games 2. Teams all against all 3. Teams winners court 4. Teams group + elimination 5. Teams elimination 60 min games

u/andriask7w ago

Jakarta, Indonesia here. For my community we use both Americano and Mexicano. We have 2 regular days. Wednesday 2 court 12 people. We were running Mexicano until one of the better players complained about having same match up in Mexicano. Eventually we switched to 2 different courts 6 players each running separate Americano because the level of the top 6 and bottom 6 is getting further apart. We also have another 4 court 24 people 2 hours. The game format is First to 4. If 3-3 tiebreaker till 7. Initially with Team Mexicano, the wait was way too long because first to 4 means it can be up to 7 games. Courts that finish fast end up waiting for a long time. So we switched to Team Americano.