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Reference · Article 3 · 4 min

What scores are valid in beach tennis (and why 5×3 is rejected)?

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 “Valid score — Ana & Bruno wins.” in green, or the exact reason for the rejection in red.

1. 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.

2. 2

   No negative numbers

   “The score can't be negative.” Lost games never become a deduction — the lowest score there is, is zero.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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)

Win by 2 games (optional, from 6 up)

A real set never ends 6–5: at 5–5 it goes to 7–5, and at 6–6 it's a tiebreak. Turn on Win by 2 games in Step 2 and the app enforces it — 5–5 and 6–6 stop being errors and become match in progress, and nothing goes past 7.

Target	Valid	Rejected
6 games	6–0 to 6–4 · 7–5 · 7–6 (tiebreak)	6–5 (margin of 1) · 7–4 (should have ended 6–4)

The option only appears for matches to 6 games or more. In a match to 4 it would force 5–3, turning a quick round into a nine-game affair — short matches are meant to end by one game.

Match OF N games (Super 8)

Total	Valid	Rejected
6 games	6–0 · 5–1 · 4–2 · 3–3	6–4 (adds to 10) · 3–2 (adds to 5)
8 games	8–0 · 7–1 · 6–2 · 5–3 · 4–4	8–2 (adds to 10) · 5–2 (adds to 7)
9 games	9–0 · 8–1 · 7–2 · 6–3 · 5–4	any sum other than 9 — an odd total never draws

With deciding game on, the draw leaves the list and the extra game's result takes its place: in a 6-game match, 3–3 becomes 4–3.

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.

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