How an Americano round works
Americano is a format for an evening when more people show up than fit on one court. It is always doubles, but without a fixed partner: after every round you get a new partner and new opponents. In the end it is not the team result that counts but how many points you collected across all rounds.
A round is not a match with sets but a block with a fixed number of points, for example 24. Every rally earns the team that wins it one point. Once all 24 points are played, the round is over. If it ends 16–8, both players on one team are credited with 16 points each and both on the other with 8 each. So the losing side keeps collecting with every rally it wins.
Common totals are 16, 21, 24 and 32 points per round. Fewer points mean shorter rounds and more partner changes in the same court time. With an odd total like 21 there can be no tie; at 24 a 12–12 is possible, and then everyone gets 12.
Scoring and serving in Americano
There is no 15, 30, 40 in Americano, no games and no golden point. Every rally simply counts. So that the serve does not favor anyone, each player serves a fixed number of times in a row, usually two or four, and then the serve passes to the other team. The order rotates: first a player from team A, then one from team B, then the second player from A, then the second from B.
Whether that comes out even depends on the total. The table below is calculated: it shows how many serves each of the four players gets when the order A1, B1, A2, B2 runs until the total is reached.
At 24 points with four serves in a row, two players serve eight times and the other two only four. With two serves in a row it is fair. At 16 and 32 points both options work out, at 21 neither does.
How many players, courts and rounds?
Four players fit on a court. Anyone who doesn't fit into a full group of four sits out that round. That sets the number of rounds: if the player count is divisible by four, you need exactly one round fewer than there are players for everyone to partner everyone once. Each player then has as many partners as there are other players. If it doesn't divide evenly, playing as many rounds as there are players is the cleanest choice: then everyone sits out equally often.
Calculated: courts = players ÷ 4 (rounded down), sit-outs per round = the remainder. For 4, 8, 12 and 16 players the standard circle method produces every partner pairing exactly once in players − 1 rounds (checked for all four cases).
If not everyone sits out equally often, for example because you stop early, the raw point total is unfair: whoever played more had more chances to score. The average per round played is fairer then.
Mexicano: pairing by the standings
Mexicano scores exactly like Americano but doesn't plan the rounds in advance. The first round is drawn or set by list order. After that you sort everyone by the current standings and fill the courts from the top down: the top four play on one court, the next four on the next.
On each court the highest-ranked player partners the fourth against the second and third. On court two that means fifth and eighth against sixth and seventh. That way players of similar strength meet and matches stay close. This is the most common rule; some organizers pair differently, so agree on it briefly before you start.
Because every round depends on the results of the previous one, the next round can only start once all courts are done. With several courts that sometimes means waiting for the slowest one.
Americano vs. Mexicano: the difference
For a group that doesn't know each other or plays at very different levels, Americano is the friendlier start: everyone plays with everyone, including the strongest players. Mexicano pays off when you want tight matches and levels are similar anyway.
Variants: Team Americano and Mixicano
In Team Americano the pairs stay the same all evening and only the opponents change. Rounds are still played to a points total, and the pair is ranked. In Mixicano every team has one woman and one man; depending on the organizer, rounds follow a fixed schedule like Americano or the standings like Mexicano. Some groups also play by time instead of points: each round lasts a set number of minutes, and the score at the whistle counts.
