What Is A Seeded Draw?

A seeded draw places players in order throughout a draw so that the best players do not play each other until the later rounds if everything goes to form.

Draws can either be fully seeded with every player position according to their ranking, or partially seeded where, for example, the top 4 players are seeded and the rest drawn randomly. Creating an even on Match Play World enables you to do both options with any number of seeds.

How To Decide Seedings

Seedings for a match play event can be based on a players past record, handicap, season ranking or a qualification tournament that then leads into a match play event.

Sometimes in annual competitions, the defending champion can be seeded 1 and then the leading qualifier seeded 2 and so on. This can lead to first and second qualifier being in the same half of the draw, which might give the defending champion in the opposite side of the draw an advantage.

How To Seed A Draw

The basic premise of a seeded draw is that in first round, the number 1 seed plays the lowest ranked player, the no 2 seed plays the 2nd lowest ranked player and so on.

The structure of the match play draw for subsequent rounds should also follow this pattern if all the matches are won by the lower seed. Therefore in order for the final to be the no 1 seed versus the no 2 seed, the number 1 seed should be placed at the top of the top half of the draw and the no2 seed at the top of the bottom half of the draw.

This also applies for all the other seeds and is important for events where the top seed has choice over the timing or venue for the match

Match Play World enables you to create seeded draws for a knockout or a Match Play Matrix® event.