Swiss System in Tennis: Does It Make Sense?

Yes, but it is worth sitting down to think about it, since two quite important questions come up: what about Game, Set, Match and how do you handle serving?

The Tie-Break Approach

If you think about it longer, the simplest solution is to use a Tie-Break style serving rotation where serving alternates in blocks, e.g. 2-2-2-2... With an even total, say 16 points, every player will serve exactly as many times as their opponent. This works well for quick tournaments or casual club matches because it straightforwardly limits how long each round takes.

What If We Want to Follow Tennis Rules?

If we would like to at least partially stick to traditional tennis rules, instead of raw points we could count games and sets.

Assuming we have no major time constraints, we could play to, say, 6 games in 2 sets, where the 6th game always closes the set.

In this setup the best game threshold could be set to 3 or 4, which in two sets could create near-ideal competitive conditions.

What About Point Counting?

Two options here: use the standard advantage scoring, or, to keep matches shorter when time is tight, play a decisive point at deuce (no-advantage rule), so the next point after 40:40 decides the game.

Many Possibilities

There are many ways to do it, and importantly, each of them lets you run a Swiss system tennis tournament.

If you have other ideas, let us know in the comments!