Meh-jor League Pickleball - the Holua League

The following rules have been approved by the league at the preseason meeting on 9/18/25.

League setup

• Teams will be made of four players – two women and two men.

• Team will play in a weekly schedule.  The schedule week runs from Monday through Sunday.  Each team will play one match against another team each week and will set up this match for a time all 8 players can attend. 

• All games will be played at Holua Racquet and Paddle in Keauhou.  Teams must notify Richard Kahalioumi of the time they would like to play to ensure court availability, unless it is during open play during daylight hours.  Games should not be scheduled during times when lights will be needed, although Saturday night will be available for league play at night.

• Teams must be available to play the entire scheduled season.  One or two weekly games could be rescheduled to another week if the other team is available – this might result in a team playing two games in the same week.

• Substitute players will be available from players not taking part in the league, but these should only be utilized as a last resort if teams are unavailable to play at the same time, or if there is an injury.  The name of the substitute player must be given to the other team in advance of the match.  Richard will make a ruling on whether a proposed new player is a fair substitute for the unavailable player.

Match rules

• Matches will consist of TEN games – one game each of women’s and men’s doubles, and eight games of mixed doubles (5 games per person).  Each team member will play one game with their same-gender teammate, and two games with each of their opposite gender teammates.  All games will be played regardless of whether one team has clinched a match win.

• There will be two rounds of mixed doubles.  In each round, each mixed team will play one game against both of the opponent's mixed teams.  This way, at the end, each player will have played against all four of their opponents twice in mixed doubles.  The only need for a lineup will be for each team to decide which mixed teams play in the first round.  The second round will be the opposite teams.  

Example:  Let's say team 1 consists of W1, W2, M1, and M2.  Team 2 has W3, W4, M3, and M4.  W of course stands for woman and M for man.

Each team decides on which team will play first.  For this example, the teams are W1/M1, W2/M2, W3/M4, AND W4/M3.

This means in the first round of 2 mixed doubles games, the matchups will be:

Game 1:  W1/M1 vs W3/M4 W2/M2 vs W4/M3

Game 2:  W1/M1 vs W4/M3 W2/M2 vs W3/M4

This means that in the second round of 2 mixed doubles games, the matchups will be:

Game 1:  W1/M2 vs W3/M3 W2/M1 vs W4/M4

Game 2:  W1/M2 vs W4/M4 W2/M1 vs W3/M3

This seems complicated.  However, there will be a score sheet to make it much easier to understand.

• All games will be played to 11 points, regular scoring, switch sides at 6, win by 2.  A match between teams will last 5 rounds, as two games will be played concurrently.

• If teams tie 5-5, point differential across all games will be used as a tie-breaker.  If point differential is even, the match will be considered a draw.

League Standings

• • The winning team gets a win in the overall standings, and total games won is also kept in the standings to be used as a tie-breaker.

  • Standings tie-breakers are match wins, head-to-head, and then total games won.  

  • The standings at the end of the season will determine the champion, unless a playoff system is adopted - this is still to be determined.