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Reference · Article 1 · 4 min
What scores are valid in beach tennis (and why 5×3 is rejected)?
A score is valid when the winner has exactly the tournament target — 2, 3, 4 or 6 games — and the loser has any lower number. 5×3 is rejected because the match ends the instant someone reaches the target: a 5th game after the 4th never happened.
In 30 seconds
- The possible targets are 2, 3, 4 or 6 games — the organizer picks one in Step 2, before generating the matches.
- The winner closes out exactly at the target. With a target of 4: 4×3 is valid (winning by a single game is allowed); 5×3 and 3×2 are not.
- On the score screen, the strip at the bottom validates on every tap — the Save result button only enables with a valid score.
The five gates, in order
Every score you try to save in Tournament › Matches tab › tap the match passes through five gates, one after another. If a single one fails, nothing is saved. While you adjust with + and −, the strip at the bottom already shows “Placar válido — Ana & Bruno vence.” (“Valid score — Ana & Bruno win.”) in green, or the exact reason for the rejection in red.
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1
The target has to be 2, 3, 4 or 6
Anything else is rejected with “Invalid number of games: 5. Allowed: 2, 3, 4 or 6.” In practice you never see this message: Step 2 only offers those four targets.
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2
No negative numbers
“The score can't be negative.” Lost games never become a deduction — the lowest score there is, is zero.
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3
Ties don't exist
“The match can't end in a tie.” There is no drawn match in the app: someone always closes out at the target, so 3×3 doesn't describe the end of a match.
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4
An exact finish at the target
The app first checks whether someone went past the target — with a target of 4, a 5×3 fails here: “Score above the 4-game limit.” Then it checks whether someone actually reached it — a 3×2 fails here: “Neither team reached 4 games.” That leaves only the scores where the winner has exactly 4: 4×0, 4×1, 4×2 and 4×3. The + button won't even let you go past the target.
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5
The tournament can't already be finished
“The tournament has already been finished. Results can no longer be changed.” This gate closes before all the others: in a finished tournament, the match opens with the Tournament finished — results locked strip and the score can't even be touched (how to finish the tournament).
Every valid score, target by target
| Target | Valid scores | Rejected examples |
|---|---|---|
| 2 games | 2×0 · 2×1 | 2×2 (tie) · 3×1 (past the target) |
| 3 games | 3×0 · 3×1 · 3×2 | 4×2 (past it) · 2×1 (no one reached 3) |
| 4 games | 4×0 · 4×1 · 4×2 · 4×3 | 5×3 (past it) · 3×2 (no one reached 4) |
| 6 games | 6×0 · 6×1 · 6×2 · 6×3 · 6×4 · 6×5 | 7×5 (past it) · 5×4 (no one reached 6) |
What goes wrong here
- “Score above the 4-game limit.” — someone counted one game too many. The match closes at the target; check with the teams and enter the score it actually ended at.
- “Neither team reached 4 games.” — the match isn't over. The app doesn't save half a match: finish the match and save the final score.
- “The match can't end in a tie.” — someone closed out at the target; check who got there.
- “The tournament has already been finished. Results can no longer be changed.” — the official result has already been shared and is protected. No score changes after that.
Why it works this way
In the app's beach tennis, the match ends the instant a team reaches the target — you don't play an extra game “to confirm”. So 5×3 describes a match that can't have existed: if it was 4×3, it ended right there. And the score matters beyond the win: in Americano and in Games mode, every game won counts toward the ranking. Finally, the winner is never typed in — the app deduces who won from the saved score. Rejecting the impossible score at the door is what guarantees the ranking never needs fixing later.
See also
Version 1.0 in closed beta on TestFlight. We email you when a spot opens in the beta — nothing else.