Official Match Mode: sanctioned matches with USTA and ITF rules
Official Match Mode turns the Live Tracker into an official’s scorecard. The Organization chooses which rulebook it plays under (ITF World Tennis Tour, USTA Adult, USTA Junior, USTA Adult League, or its own custom rules), a member with the Official role records the match, and every penalty, timeout, suspension, and correction is written into the match as an event with the exact rule it was applied under. The result is a sanctioned match: locked at sign-off, with a full audit trail for the tournament desk, the federation, or a parent who wants to know what happened at 4-4 in the second.
Official Match Mode is for Organizations only. Personal matches are unaffected. It’s available in iOS 3.5 and Android 1.5 and later, and on the Organizations web app.
What it adds
- A rules profile per Organization. Owners and Admins pick the rulebook under Settings › Match rules. Every new Organization match records the profile and version it started under and keeps it for the whole match, even across a suspension.
- The Official role. A member role for certified officials. Officials see the Organization’s active rules and run matches in official mode. Owners and Admins can act as officials too, so a tournament director can cover a court.
- Official mode in the Live Tracker. The pause button is replaced by an Official button that opens the officiating actions: suspend play (rain, darkness, other), timeouts (medical with a countdown, toilet, coaching where allowed, equipment), code violations with the profile’s penalty ladder, score corrections, retirement, and default.
- Penalties scored by the server, not the phone. When an official applies a violation, Smashpoint computes the score effect from the rules profile (point, game, set, match, or default) and the tracker shows the result. Ladder badges (W, P, G) appear next to the player’s name as steps are reached.
- Sign-off. At the end, the official records the result type (Completed, Retired, Default, Walkover), reviews violations and suspensions, optionally has the players acknowledge, and signs off. The match is locked; it shows a Sanctioned badge and the rules profile name.
- History. The saved match’s History tab lists every suspension with its duration, every timeout, every violation with its step and score effect, every correction with who made it, and the sign-off.
Who does what
| Role | Match rules page | Run a match in official mode |
|---|---|---|
| Owner, Admin | Choose and edit | Yes |
| Official | View | Yes |
| Coach, Full | No | No (they track normally) |
| View | No | No |
A match tracked by a Coach or Full member is a normal Organization match. If an Official later attaches to that live match, it switches into official mode from that point and the whole match is sanctioned.
Rulebooks included
- ITF World Tennis Tour: warning, point, game ladder; coaching off-court with a chair umpire only; 3-minute medical timeouts, none for cramping; one toilet break per best-of-three.
- USTA Adult Tournament: USTA Point Penalty System, no warning step (point, game, default); one cramping timeout per match; coaching only in rest periods and suspensions.
- USTA Junior Tournament: USTA Adult plus the junior rest-period rules (mandatory 10 minutes after the second set, 3 minutes before a match tiebreak) and no practice during rest periods.
- USTA Adult League: USTA Adult with the League Regulations overrides (10-minute rest period when the league provides one, default scores for ranking).
- Custom rules: clone any of the above, change what your section or federation modifies, publish with a version note. Built for high school programs and non-US federations. See Choose your Organization’s match rules.
Scoring format (no-ad, match tiebreak, best of three or five) is not part of the rules profile; it’s chosen per match on the Format step as always.
Good to know
- Officials need an account. Unlike Guests or members added by name, an Official signs in and tracks on their own phone, so they need an email address and a Smashpoint account.
- Offline works. If the court has no signal, officiating actions queue on the phone and sync in order when the connection returns. The server’s score wins if anything conflicts.
- The official’s name is visible to members of the Organization, not on the public match page.
- Corrections are events too. Undoing a point, reassigning it, or editing a game or set score leaves a row in History with the before and after and who did it. Nothing is silently overwritten.
- Nothing changes for everyone else. Members tracking matches without an official attached see the tracker exactly as before.
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