How much of the booking is actually playing time?
A reservation needs room for games, court changes, and everything else the group must do before leaving. The calculator separates those three costs. “Setup + breaks” is your total allowance for check-in, warm-up, planned water breaks, and clearing the court; increase it if those activities need more than the default ten minutes.
For twelve players on three courts, six games each need six rounds. At 12 minutes per game that is 72 minutes of play. Five two-minute changes add ten minutes, and ten minutes for setup and breaks makes a 92-minute reservation. To stay inside 90 minutes, 11-minute rounds give an 86-minute plan with the same other assumptions.
The calculation, step by step
- Use the smaller of available courts and the whole number of four-player groups. Ten people can use two full doubles courts, even if three were reserved.
- Multiply players by requested minimum games per player to find the required player-slots.
- Divide those slots by four times the active courts, then round up to a whole number of rounds.
- Multiply rounds by game minutes. Add changeover minutes for every gap between rounds, then add setup and breaks.
There is no changeover after the last round. A one-round session therefore contains zero between-round minutes. Pack-up time belongs in the setup/break allowance, not in an extra court change.
Why some people may play an extra game
Ten players asking for five games each need 50 player-slots. Two full courts provide eight per round. Six rounds provide only 48, so seven are required; those seven rounds supply 56. A balanced assignment gives six people six games and four people five. The extra six player-games are a consequence of filling every court, not a promise of identical playing time.
If exact equality matters, change the target or the event format. For ten players and two courts, five rounds allow four games each; ten rounds allow eight. Leaving some courts idle could produce a different plan, but this calculator assumes every active court is filled each round and does not optimize partially filled rounds.
What the estimate cannot predict
Timed rounds can follow a shared clock if your group agrees on an ending rule. Games played to a target can last longer, especially when a win-by margin applies. Enter an estimated game duration and allow extra time; this tool has no historical match data and cannot forecast individual game lengths.
The displayed game range assumes an even distribution. The schedule generator uses a search, so inspect its actual game/rest table before promising everyone a minimum. The calculator may propose more than the generator’s 20-round limit for a large roster on few courts; in that case use separate blocks and manually combine playing-time totals.
Once the booking fits, use the schedule generator and the worked event timeline. Report a calculation issue with the six inputs; no real player names are needed.