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Match day · 5 seconds a point

Track your first match

Two taps a point: the serve, then who won it. Do that for one match and you walk to the car with first-serve percentage, double faults, and break points won and saved. Everything deeper is a switch you flip later, on a day you can keep up.

Watch this guide on YouTubeThe same guide, narrated, one chapter per screen. Opens on YouTube; nothing from YouTube loads on this page.

Before the first ball

Create the match from the Compete tab (tap Track live match): your athlete, the opponent's name, and the format. Best of 3, no-ad, 10-point match tiebreak, 8-game pro set, short sets: if the draw sheet says it, there is a preset for it. Doubles works the same way with two opponents named.
Find your spot: somewhere you can see the whole court and glance at your phone without being a distraction.

During the match: the loop

For each point you tap two things:

The serve: ace, in, or fault. A fault opens the second serve.
Who won the point.

Then you are back to watching. Nothing is pre-filled, so every serve in the record is one you actually saw. TierBreak keeps the score: games, sets, tiebreaks, no-ad deciding points, side changes. The big score display is readable from three courts away.

Made a mistake? Use undo. Points can be corrected as you go; the score recalculates everything downstream. If the score itself has drifted, tap the scoreboard to edit the score and get back on track; the points you already logged stay logged.

Pressure points tag themselves. Break points, game points, set points, and match points are detected from the score. You never label anything, and those tags are what the Weekly Review reads later.

Can't track every point?

You will get sandwiches, chat with other parents, miss a game. Track what you can, even set scores only. A season tracked honestly at two taps beats three dense matches and then nothing; the trends need matches, not depth. TierBreak is built for real fences, not lab conditions.

No signal at the courts? Match tracking is built offline-first: points are stored on the device and sync when you're back on a network. The loop is the same in a dead zone; nothing about the two taps waits on a bar of signal.

After the handshake

Missed the match, or catching up on a weekend of them? On the Compete tab, Add Results reads a pasted USTA results page or a photo of the draw sheet and shows you every match it found, with the score from your athlete's side, before adding any. Those matches carry the score and the result, not the points, so they sit in the record and never in The Proof.

The numbers: first-serve percentage, aces and double faults, break points won and saved, serve and return points won, and every point plotted against the moments that mattered. All of it comes from the two-tap floor.
The reflection: the athlete's post-match check-in (how they competed, energy, emotions, one focus for next time). Thirty seconds in the car, and the day is won.
The Weekly Review: every tracked point feeds Sunday's Weekly Review. One match is a data point; a season is a case file.

Later: more taps, more answers

Every extra thing TierBreak knows costs you attention at the fence, so the capture steps are separate switches and they all start off. Add one when you want the answer it buys, and turn it off on the day you can't keep up. Change what you track lives in the match header, so you can step down mid-match without leaving the point. Every switch prints its own price in taps before you flip it.

What you tap	What it costs	What you get back
Serve + point winner the floor	2 taps: the serve, then who won	First-serve percentage, aces, double faults, break points won and saved, serve and return points won, and the win/loss dot grid.
+ the return forehand or backhand	No extra taps: the wing tap replaces the serve tap, because the serve is taken as in while this is on	How they return from the deuce side and the ad side, off each wing. Usually the first thing a coach is actually working on.
+ serve placement, rally length, outcome, final shot, court position	1 to 2 more taps each	Where points are won and lost: rally-length bands, winner and error rates, what shot ends the point, whether coming forward pays, and where the serve goes.

Most families should stop before the bottom row for a while. If a step is off, that field is simply blank; TierBreak never guesses a value and never counts "not tracked" as though it happened.

The Story. With a guardian's consent on record, TierBreak can also write a short recap of the match from the actual point data: the run that decided the second set, the break-point save. It is AI-written, it is off for athletes under 13, and it is a conversation starter for when the athlete is ready to talk, not a report card.

Fence etiquette

You are a scoreboard, not a coach. The loop is designed to keep your eyes up and your mouth closed. If the match gets tense, track points and breathe; your athlete will read your calm from across the court. The parents' guide has more, including what to say in the car.

TierBreak is free on the App Store, on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Want to work directly with the founder? Ask for an Inner Circle place.

See it on one match: what one tracked match showed, and what three later ones proved. A story with the real numbers.

Next: Your first Weekly Review →

Go deeper

From the blog, where these questions get the long answer.

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