SmashIQ awards, part one: the tournament run

First, know the field.

A champion’s medal tells you who won the event. SmashIQ’s awards let you look at other parts of the tournament: the opposition someone faced, the seeds they beat, or the amount of court time they carried across events. This is part one of a guide to all ten awards.

Awards are calculated separately for events in two pools: U13 and below, and U15 and above. Open and masters events sit in the older pool. The event’s age bounds decide the pool, rather than the player’s birthday; a younger player entering an older event contributes to that event’s pool. The displayed division name may list its actual age bands.

Except for Marathon Warrior, candidates are event entries: a singles player or a doubles pair in one event. Results from your singles and doubles entries do not become one combined Titan score. Marathon adds time for an individual across their entries within the same division.

All examples here are invented to illustrate the calculation. They assume eligible candidates in the same pool. Awards can compare entries from different categories within that pool, but SmashIQ does not invent a difficulty multiplier between disconnected draws.

Tournament Titan: how strong was the run?

Titan combines a smoothed match record, a smoothed point share, and opponent form. It needs at least two played matches and a non-zero total of recorded points. Completed matches and retirements count as played; walkovers do not contribute.

Match form = (wins + 1) ÷ (played matches + 2)
Point form = (points won + 20) ÷ (all points + 40)
Titan index = 100 × (0.55 × match form + 0.25 × point form + 0.20 × opponent form)

The extra counts pull small samples towards 50%. They belong to the ranking calculation; they do not change the actual match record or points won.

Kabir narrowly ranks ahead. His lower match form is offset by better point control and stronger opposition. The index is a weighted summary of this tournament’s evidence, not a rating of how likely Kabir is to beat Arjun.

The Gauntlet: who had the hardest road?

The Gauntlet ranks average opponent form, with at least three played matches required. Your own wins are not part of its score. You can lose a difficult match and still have faced the strongest road.

For each opponent, SmashIQ removes your direct match and uses their other played matches in the pool. Their match record carries 60% of the form calculation; their point share carries 40%, with the same small-sample adjustments used above.

Opponent form = 0.60 × (other wins + 1) ÷ (other matches + 2)
+ 0.40 × (other points won + 20) ÷ (other total points + 40)

Suppose an opponent wins both of their other matches and scores 84 of 140 points. Their form is 0.60 × 3/4 + 0.40 × 104/180 = 68.1%. With no other played matches, form is neutral at 50%. That is a lack of independent evidence, not a verdict that the opponent is average.

Removing the head-to-head avoids making an opponent look weaker simply because you beat them. It also means a familiar strong player who exits early may have little independent evidence here. The Gauntlet describes the recorded road, not reputation.

Giant Slayer: how much seed order did you overturn?

At least one completed win over a higher-seeded opponent qualifies. A smaller seed number means a higher seed. Retirement wins and walkovers do not count as upsets for this award.

Upset score = your ranking number − opponent seed + (1 ÷ opponent seed)
Giant Slayer score = sum of all qualifying upset scores

A seeded entry uses its seed for that match. An unseeded entry uses N + 1, where N is the number of entries in that event with a recorded non-bye outcome in the award data. N is not the advertised draw size. Seeds are phase-aware: a qualifying seed does not carry into the main draw if that entry is unseeded there.

Rohan’s repeated upsets outweigh Dev’s one big scalp. The score measures disruption of event seed order. It cannot estimate the probability of an upset, or judge a victory over a strong opponent who happened to be unseeded.

Decider Dynamo: repeated success at full distance.

This award needs at least two completed matches that reached the deciding game. It ranks the deciding-game win rate by its 95% Wilson lower bound, a conservative score that accounts for how much evidence sits behind a percentage.

Two unbeaten deciders are still an excellent result. Six deciders provide more evidence, so an 83.3% record can receive the stronger conservative score. The lower bound is not a prediction of the next deciding game.

Marathon Warrior: the court time you carried.

Marathon sums an individual’s recorded playing duration across singles and doubles entries in the pool. At least two played matches with known duration are needed. Each match counts once per player; both doubles partners receive its duration.

The report rounds each match’s stored duration to the nearest minute before summing. Walkovers and unknown durations are excluded. This is match time, including ordinary intervals; recorded suspensions are excluded by the duration calculation. Waiting around the venue does not count.

That makes Marathon a workload award. It does not measure distance covered, rally intensity, fitness, or how well someone coped with fatigue.

Read the evidence alongside the award.

While results change, award rankings are provisional. Official tournament placings remain separate from these honours. A published award recognises the leading eligible candidate under its formula; it does not turn that formula into a universal player ranking.

An award can have no winner when its threshold is unmet. A walkover-heavy run might not produce enough played matches for Titan or The Gauntlet; a draw without seeded upsets cannot produce a Giant Slayer. That tells you what the evidence supports.

Part two gets into the rally record: pressure points, comebacks, starts, scoring runs, and balance while serving and receiving.