What is an EVO rating?

EVO is a skill rating from 0 to 100. You have a separate one for each sport you play, so a badminton win never touches your padel number. Everyone starts at 50, and the rating moves with results from there.

It is worked out on our servers after each confirmed match. There is no screen in the app where a rating can be typed in or edited, by you or by anyone else.

Every match has an expected result, based on the gap between the two sides. Beat someone rated above you and your number rises a lot, because that result was unlikely. Beat someone rated well below you and it barely moves, because that was expected. Losses work the same way in reverse: losing to a stronger player costs little, losing to a weaker one costs more.

In doubles the two pairs are compared using both partners' ratings, and all four players move. A clear win moves the numbers a little further than a tight one, but who won matters far more than the margin.

A rating built on one or two results is not worth showing. Until your fifth confirmed match in a sport, the app shows "Cooking" where the number would be. Behind that label your rating is moving at its fastest, so it can find your level quickly.

From your fifth match the number appears with a ~ in front of it. That means provisional: the rating still moves quickly, just less so. From your twentieth match the ~ drops and your EVO moves at its slowest, settled rate. The three stages are the same for every player and every sport.

Every rating sits in one of six named tiers, and the tier's colour follows your number everywhere it appears: the home screen, the rankings, your profile. Everyone starts in Regular.

• Rookie: 0 to 29
• Contender: 30 to 44
• Regular: 45 to 59
• Sharp: 60 to 74
• Strong: 75 to 89
• Legendary: 90 to 100

Only confirmed matches count. A group match is confirmed the moment it is logged. A Quick Match counts once a player on the other side confirms it. Pickups, the casual score-keeper for a night's play, never touch EVO at all.

Playing the same opponent, or the same pair, again within a month counts for less each time, so a rating cannot be built on one person. There is also a limit on how far a rating can move in a single day, whatever happens on court.

Anyone in a match can correct the score for two weeks after it is logged, until one of the players records another match in that sport. After that the result is locked, because later ratings were built on it, and only the group's chief admin can remove it. Nothing about Rally or Pro changes how EVO is worked out: a subscription buys deeper stats, never a better number.

Your EVO follows you. Play the same sport in three groups and all three feed the same number. Group rankings are different: each group ranks its members on the matches played inside that group, with its own points. So you can top one group and sit lower in another while your EVO stays one rating.

That is the point of having both. The group table settles who is best among your friends. EVO tells you how good you are, and whether that is changing.