Building A Table Tennis Tournament App

[Novarac23]

I've been building an app for fuguring out local tourneys, your rating etc. It's been somewhat annoying to not have an easy way of looking up tournamnets, folks that play in those tournaments, their performance and how you stack up against those folks. So I finally decided to build an app. I recorded a small demo of it, still super duper early stages but if anyone is potentially interested in using it let me know and please let me know your feedback! My hope is start with US (USATT and Spindex ratings + platforms for tournaments like omnipong and others) and then if there's a need expand to Europe and other parts of the world. First version will likely be iOS only but later will port to Android as well (if there is demand for it).

Edit: Forgot to mention an important bit that Tony reminded me, this is all presuming I can get access to the data. I have been communicating with USATT folks and it's promising. If I ever wanted to expand to other continents will have to talk to folks there to get the data.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

have you communicated with the tournament organizations, like USATT about accessing there data of tournaments, or can you do it without them sanctioning it?

 

[Novarac23]

have you communicated with the tournament organizations, like USATT about accessing there data of tournaments, or can you do it without them sanctioning it?

Yeah I've been chatting with USATT folks to see if I can get some kind of an API access. They are moving to a new platform soon-ish so API access should be available (to get the data)

 

[PhoenixTT]

I'm curious:
- Will USATT offer API access for free or will they charge for it?
- Are there personal / privacy data regulations you need to address in terms of the data you access and store? (I have no idea, I'm just wondering because USA)
- I wonder how AI can be used in the app. ("In your next match, you will be playing against <name>. The best strategy is not be there.")

 

[Novarac23]

I'm curious:
- Will USATT offer API access for free or will they charge for it?
- Are there personal / privacy data regulations you need to address in terms of the data you access and store? (I have no idea, I'm just wondering because USA)
- I wonder how AI can be used in the app. ("In your next match, you will be playing against <name>. The best strategy is not be there.")

Don’t know if it’s going to be free or not and I’m looking into data privacy for this. As far as AI is concerned I have those features planned. For starters it will be around where are you most likely to go furthest (based on your performance and performance of other players in that event etc) The machine learning/ ai features i am the most excited about

 

[PhoenixTT]

For starters it will be around where are you most likely to go furthest (based on your performance and performance of other players in that event etc)

Exciting times!

 

[Novarac23]

Yeah im pumped! 🙌

 

[XpingpingpongpongX]

it would be awesome to also include features to look for places and partners to play.

 

[Andrea Jiang]

Cool and Good idea, hope sucessful.

 

[Novarac23]

Hey folks! Got some good news! I'm finally good to go on USATT data! Quick demo of the current progress below:

quick_app_demo_v2.mov

drive.google.com

Key features so far are:
- Explore upcoming tournaments and what events they have. Also explore who is signed up for those events currently.
- For each player get their overall stats and see progress they made on their rating.
- Search players you are interested in and explore their overall stats and see progress they made on rating.

Features I will try to build before launch:
- Compettiive analysis. Pick a tournament and an algorithm will tell you which event to sign up in for based on your recent performance and performance of players in those events, so you have higher chances of winning.
- Head to head comparison between players (this one is a maybe for launch)

Features for the future:
- expand to different countries (where it makes sense) and rating systems.
- add social aspect where you can look for people / partners to play before the tournament (I run into this all the time since I generally just come with my family who doesn't play and have to hunt around for folks)

It is going to be an iOS only for now and as there is demand I'll build the android version. The competitive analysis, head to head comparison and seeing some of the player stats will be payed features (not sure about pricing structure yet but just wanted to be transparent). However I will have all features unlcoked for free for beta testers, so if you are interested please let me know! I'm hoping to have test flight (beta testing app) up and running in about month time (presuming the schedule does not get even busier haha)!

 

[Novarac23]

Quick update for folks! So I'm getting fairly close to being able to publish the app to test flight. Here are the features so far that I have built and I'm planning to release with to the beta users:

- Explore upcoming (and past) tournaments and what events they have. Also explore who is signed up for those events. For each player who signed up for event explore their overall stats and see progress they made on their rating.
- Search players you are interested in and explore their overall stats and see progress they made on their rating.
- Find a practice buddy [NEW]. Essentially this came from the problem that I had before where I would show up to a tournament (without a practice partner) and I have to find someone to warmup with. I would especially have problem finding players who want to do a proper warmup (beyond just BH/FH loops, but do pushes, a bit of footwork drills, open ups, serves etc). So this feature allows you to find folks that are like minded (be it if you want to to just hit a few FHs and call it a day or if you want to find more serious warm up partner) and need a practice partner.

As soon as I have the test flight link I'll post it here for folks that are interested. Also if you are going to Chicago Edgeball I'm going to be there and try and get folks to try out app live. So if you are interested and are in that tournament don't be afraid to say hi!

Anyhow super duper excited and hopefully some of you are too!

 

[Novarac23]

Hi folks,

Got some big news, I'm ready for beta testers! Here's the test flight link: https://testflight.apple.com/join/Tf3zKaYE

Key features that are live:

• Explore tournaments, events, and players — see who’s playing what event, and how they’ve been performing.
• Search for specific players to view their stats and trends over time.
• My Tournaments: If you’ve signed up for an upcoming tournament, you’ll see it under “My Tournaments.”
• [NEW] Find a practice buddy! So after talking to a few folks and having this problem myself I decided to prioritize a feature that would let people find practice partners at tournaments. Here's how it works:
  • Go to the “Practice” section, pick your tournament, and create a post with your level, location, and any notes.
  • Other attendees can see your post under “Available” and accept your request.
  • Once accepted, both of you can view the meetup location.
  • You’ll each get a secret code to show one another before practicing — a small safety layer to help ensure things stay friendly and legit.

A few things to note:

• The app currently works only with USATT tournaments and ratings, so it’s limited to the U.S. for now. After the beta period is over (aka app is in the app store) I am planning to expand it to toher countries.
• It’s iOS-only at this stage. If there’s enough interest after the beta, I’ll begin work on an Android version.
• The data behind the app is refreshed biweekly due to the large amount of data processing required to get everything sorted out. As I get out of beta I'm planning on weekly updates but in case you see old tournaments that are still in the upcoming tab, that's why that's happening.
• For beta testers everything in the app is free, when the app goes to the app store some of the features will be payed (so it can cover server costs, expanding the project to other countries etc).
• App screenshots that are likely going to be used in the app store can be found here so it gives you an idea about how the app looks and functions. These might change as I get closer to releasing the app.

I built this because I genuinely wanted to understand who I’d be facing in upcoming tournaments — and I hope it helps others do the same. 🙌
If you check it out, I’d love your feedback!

Much love,
Novarac23

 

[PhoenixTT]

How portable might it be for other sports? Eg if you decided to expand it to the badminton market (or sumo wrestling...). Just different data sources?

 

[Novarac23]

How portable might it be for other sports? Eg if you decided to expand it to the badminton market (or sumo wrestling...). Just different data sources?

Assuming the data structure is similar (for example each tournament is broken down into events and a rating system similar to USATT) then yeah it might be just a data source and a few weeks worth of work to get everything plugged into the right spots and tested Sorry don't know much about badminton!

 

[Novarac23]

Also folks, if you are going to the Edgeball Chicago tourney that's coming up next weekend, I will be there! So if you're interested can walk you through the app myself And we can warmup as well, if you're interested

 

[PhoenixTT]

Sorry don't know much about badminton!

Yeah me neither. Was just pondering.

 

[Novarac23]

All good!

Yeah me neither. Was just pondering.

all good 🙌

 

[Novarac23]

Hello friends,

For android folks (and folks on older apple devices) I have made a web app version of the iOS app. It has all the same features as the iOS app If you're interested you can sign up here: https://spinup-backend-api.onrender.com/app/signup

It will ask you for the invite code (created this to prevent bots from signing up + to keep the feedback that I'm getting manageable) and the code is AWESOMEBETAUSER91

Would love to hear your feedback!

 

[Novarac23]

Hey folks,

There's been some major updates to the app! Here's the screenshot of the web app (iOS app looks very similar):

* For match stats I created a way to filter between recent and all time stats. Idea behind that was that all time stats are nice but a lot of times you are interested in how player is performing recently.
* I created something called a "Performance Score" which is basically a way to combine recent match stats into one number. Idea behind this is to have one number that will tell you how the player is doing recently (0 being lowest and 100 being highest)
* Updated data (I'm posting this late but this data is as of mid last week)
* A lot of behind the scenes improvement to make the charts and data in general more accurate

Next I'll be working on a feature were folks will be able to compare themselves against a player and it will tell them how likely are they to win (given their performance, their oponenets performance, head to head results etc). And after that will build a similar feature where you can enter your bracket and it will tell you how far you are likely to go in an event. These are going to take some time but I'm hoping 2ish months of work wil be enough.

I would love to hear your thoughts! Even if you are not from the US, feel free to sign up and poke around if you have time. Let me know what you think can be better, whats going well etc. I keep being super excited about this project and I hope some of you are too

 

[PhoenixTT]

Just mucking around with a thought: for that Rating chart you showed, what if the y-axis represents the rating of the opponents. If you won against someone rated 1110 in April 2025, it would show as a green circle at the intersection of 1110 / Apr 25, If you lost, it would show as a red circle. Over time you'll get a scatter diagram of all your wins and losses against various rated players over time.

Oh, also, suppose you and I both use the app, and then we have a match. If the app predicts that you have a 75% chance of winning, will it show me to have a 25% chance of winning? Would the sum of the % be 100%?