Double Elimination
This seems to be the most traditional format used in beach volleyball before the world tour made pool play more common and in many national tours such as the AVP, it is still used. The favourite format of players and beach purists the world over, it gives you 2 chances or lives, at least right up until semi final time when single elimination usually kicks in.
Side note: In the old AVP even the semis and finals continued with the double elimination, meaning if the final was your first loss of the event then you replayed the final again–it became a Double Final! This was a timed event to allow for TV and along with the rally point system added its own extra spice to the game for both the players and the fans.
The format works by placing all entrants into a bracket as you would for a single elimination event with the top seed playing the lowest seed and so on. Once you lose a match you are moved into a 2nd bracket known as the Losers or Contenders Bracket whereby you play against other losers in an attempt to stay alive and finally at semifinal time meet back with the 2 unbeaten teams on the original or Winners Bracket. Which round you first lose in determines at which stage you cross into the Losers Bracket. A strength of this format is that even if the seedings are inaccurate (they often can be due to injury, not playing or other reasons), it still usually delivers a pretty accurate finishing place for most teams. It's a faster system than pool play which is one reason it can be popular for National Tours which are often played over a weekend. The majority of players love it and for a tournament promoter it usually gives a higher number of quality games across all courts which is great for the fans both live and on TV.
Single Elimination
A very common and easily understood format and what the tennis majors use. It's also used as the 2nd stage of nearly every major sporting event in the world after pool play such as world cups and the Olympics etc. However in Beach Volleyball it is not normally used as a stand alone format like the Tennis majors. But this doesn’t mean it couldn’t be used in the future and recently I have championed this idea and found others also suggesting it should be tried! (including Kent Steffes and Tri Bourne on a recent Sandcast Podcast). It is however used as the standard format in most if not all beach volleyball tournament qualifiers around the world.
One big pro is the number of teams that can enter a main draw can be dramatically increased (e.g. 64 teams could be easily accommodated in most 3 day tournaments with max 2 games per day per team). However teams may not want to travel long distances to potentially play just 1 game. Its does place greater value on that game and on taking part though.
Pool Play
In traditional pool play, teams play all other teams in their pool (round robin). The teams in each pool are decided by team seedings using the Serpentine system. Pools usually have 3, 4 or 5 teams each depending on the size of the competition draw. For an easy and fair transition from pools to single elimination playoffs the ideal number of teams are always doubling as follows: 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 etc in order to result in 4 teams for semifinals. Without this number of teams intermediary play off rounds are required and/or lucky losers may be added to boost the number. (i.e. if you have 24 teams in 6 pools of 4, then the top 2 per pool gives you 12 teams which is too many for quarterfinals and not enough for a round of 16. You either have to add 4 lucky losers (4 best 3rd placed teams on points ratio) or give the top 4 teams a bye and have the remaining 8 play off in a round of 12.
Teams are ranked in order in each pool by wins first and then sets ratio and/or points ratio. (points for, divided by points against). The top team or teams from each pool will then progress to the elimination rounds usually played in a single elimination format.
Pool play is considered by most sports as the standard format for most major tournaments as it distributes the talent and gives opportunity for all to have a bad game or day and still progress through to the next round. It usually results in the strongest teams advancing or “breaking pool”.
An explanation of Modified Pool Play (not an advised format to use)
Side Note: This format was seemingly invented in 2017 for use in the 5 Star System World Tour. Google searching shows no results of any other sport in the world using this format. The reason for this format was to reduce the number of matches in the tournament and therefore the operational costs. However in my experience the biggest cost by a long way of any tournament is building the courts and infrastructure (grandstands, marquees, power, lighting, branding etc etc.) Once the venue is built, operating it for one more day is a small cost in comparison. Yes there are extra costs with accommodation and food but more event days add more value to the city and the sponsors and more potential ticket and TV sales (actually selling these is a separate issue!).
The format has been used with pools of 4 teams where rather than a full round robin of 6 total matches per pool there is just 4 matches per pool by playing 1 v 4 and 2 v 3 and then the 2 winners playing for 1st in pool and the 2 losers playing for 3rd in pool.
Modified pool play doesn't give much allowance for a bad day/bad game, and especially your first game becomes critical to win. And if the seedings are not very accurate (which can easily happen due to injuries, not playing for any reason etc etc.) then you may well be seeded 4th in your pool and have little to no chance against the top seed.
Summary: Players don’t like it, it's confusing for fans, saves little to no money for organisers and often gives unusual results.
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