Skip to main content

Set-Based Scoring: Volleyball, Tennis, and Badminton

What is set-based scoring?​

Some sports determine the winner by sets rather than a single cumulative score. In tennis, a player wins by taking more sets (e.g., 6-4, 3-6, 7-5). In volleyball, a team wins by taking 3 out of 5 sets. Score7 lets you enter up to 5 sets per match, in any sport. There is no match-length setting to choose (such as best of 3 or best of 5): you add the sets that were actually played, one by one.

How to enter set-based results​

  1. Go to the Matches section and find the match
  2. Open the match's edit menu and choose Update Result (the dialog is titled Enter Result while the match has no result yet)
  3. Click Add Set to add a set row
  4. Enter the score for each set (e.g., Set 1: 25–21, Set 2: 18–25, Set 3: 25–23)
  5. Repeat for each set played — up to 5 sets maximum
  6. Save the result

Winner calculation: By default, Score7 picks as winner whoever won more of the sets you entered. If Team A wins sets 1, 3, and 4 (3 sets) and Team B wins set 2 (1 set), Team A is the winner.

Deleting a set: You can remove any individual set from the result if it was entered incorrectly.

Overriding the winner​

In some cases, you may need to override the calculated winner — for example, if a team was disqualified or a walkover was awarded. Use the three-way toggle (Home / Draw / Away) to manually select the winner. The set scores still display, but Score7 uses your selected winner for standings and bracket advancement.

Standing points override for set-based sports​

Many set-based sports use a variable point system based on how close the match was. For example, in volleyball:

ResultWinner pointsLoser points
3-0 or 3-130
3-221

Score7 lets you override the standing points for each match individually:

  1. After entering the set scores, expand the Standing Points section
  2. Enter the custom point value for each participant
  3. Save — the custom points are used in standings instead of the default win/draw/loss allocation

This works for any round-robin or group stage match where standings are calculated.

Set-based standing criteria​

When using set-based sports, you can enable additional ranking criteria in the standings configuration:

  • Sets Played — total sets across all matches
  • Sets Won — total sets won
  • Sets Lost — total sets lost
  • Sets Difference — sets won minus sets lost

These criteria work alongside the standard ones (Points, Score Difference, etc.) and can be reordered by priority using drag and drop.

Which sports use set-based scoring?​

Any sport where the match is divided into sets, games, or periods with independent scores:

  • Volleyball (indoor and beach) — typically best of 5 sets
  • Tennis — best of 3 or 5 sets
  • Badminton — best of 3 games
  • Table tennis — best of 5 or 7 games
  • Squash — best of 5 games

These are the usual match lengths in each sport; Score7 doesn't ask you to pick one. The Add Set button is in the result dialog for every sport, so there is nothing to switch on when you create the tournament. Enter as many sets as were played, up to five: two for a 2-0 win in a best-of-3 match, five for a best-of-5 match that went the distance. A match that runs past five sets, such as a table tennis best-of-7 that reaches a sixth game, cannot be entered in full.

Next steps in Score7

Last updated on