Planning the season

Put the next tournament on the calendar, first day and last day. That is the whole first step, and it buys you a reminder the evening before, dots on the training calendar, and a practice match that starts live tracking with one tap when the day comes. The Season tab holds the rest: camps, training blocks, rest, and the fixed dates around them.

The ceilings that come before any calendar (hours a week, tournaments a month, rest months) are in Overuse injuries: the basics for parents.

Your plan, on the Season tab

The Season tab opens on this season: every tournament you are considering or have entered, plus anything you add. Find a tournament (also on Compete) searches the junior tournament list: open one for its facts, then mark it Considering or I've entered. + Add takes anything else, with a first and last day: a practice match, a camp, a training block with an intent (build, sharpen, recover), rest, or a fixed date such as exams or a family trip. An entered tournament and anything you add get a dot on the training calendar for each of their days; a tournament you are only considering stays off the calendar. Compete keeps what's next at the top and opens the same plan.

The season plan

The plan lays the season out month by month. Weekends where you are weighing two events show as one slot with both options side by side: dates, when entries close, and how many have entered. Mark the events that matter most as Priority, from each tournament's page, and build the rest around them; the plan says so when priorities crowd together, and if you enter two events on the same weekend it reminds you to decide before the earlier entry deadline. It never withdraws you and never blocks a choice. The year ahead shows each month at a glance, with its tournament weekends, priority events, camps and rest, and on the phone a tap opens the month's calendar; you vs last season shows this season against the one before, with matches counted by kind (tournament, team or school, practice) and two labeled age lines behind your player's own numbers as context, never a target. All of that is free.

Rest, proposed. After a priority event the plan proposes two to seven days of rest; between two events close together, two to four; after a camp, one to three. Each one is a proposal you accept or dismiss, never a rule, and accepted rest days count as won days. The plan never says you are doing it wrong; it counts, and it proposes.

A connected coach who holds the schedule area can propose a tournament, a training block or rest, and it lands on the plan as a proposal with the coach's name for your family to accept or decline; nothing is real until you accept. The same plan is on the web at app.tierbreak.app/season, with a print view.

Plans change. Tap an event to open it: a tournament from the list opens its page, and an event you typed opens to edit its dates or details, or delete it. A scheduled practice match does double duty: when the day arrives, tapping it starts live tracking with the opponent pre-filled, and if the day has passed, it offers to log the result instead. Its pencil edits it.

Reminders that respect you

The evening before any scheduled event, whether a tournament, a practice match, or a camp, the app sends one local reminder at 6 PM. Pack tonight, play tomorrow. For a tournament you are considering, it also reminds you 7 days and 2 days before entries close, and on the morning entries open if you tap Remind me when entries open. Every one of these is scheduled on the phone itself: no morning-of panic, no spam. On Advanced we also email you when your player's status on an entry list changes, and when a tournament you were only considering is canceled. The bell on Today collects the same information quietly: what's coming this week.

One weekly target

The Week tab holds a days-per-week number that the daily ring measures against. Set it honestly rather than ambitiously; it is the bar you are trying to clear most weeks, not your best week. You can change it any time, and it takes effect immediately. A training block proposes the week's number and the rest days for its weeks; it never sets them for you.

Why plan rest? Flip Rest day on Today and planned recovery counts as a won day, exactly like a training day. The athletes who last are the ones whose calendars say "rest" out loud.

The summer stretch

Summer is when the calendar stops being theoretical. Events stack up, weeks blur, and the schedule quietly becomes the training plan whether you designed it or not. So design it. Put the events in first: every tournament you've already entered, with its real first day and last day. The open weeks are what's actually left, and a training block with an intent is how you claim one on purpose.

Working backwards is the trick. When the events go on the timeline first, the honest amount of room for building becomes obvious, usually less than it felt like in May. Then set the weekly target against the summer you're actually having, and move it when the summer changes.

When the plan breaks, and it will

Draws move. A back-draw match appears on a day you'd written off. Somebody wakes up sick. For an event you added yourself, tap it to change its dates or delete it, and reshape the week around it. A tournament you were only considering can be marked Not playing this one, and put back later. Once you tap I've entered, the plan follows the USTA entry list: a change or a withdrawal happens on the tournament's USTA page, and with your player's USTA ID on their profile the plan shows it once the list does.

The entry-list question. Most families ask "how many tournaments this summer?" The more useful version: after this event, where is the recovery, and is it on the calendar? If you can't answer that, the entry is one too many.

Where the events come from

Find a tournament, on the Compete tab, searches USTA's junior tournaments, read from USTA's public listings: dates, entry deadlines, levels, draw sizes and, with a home ZIP, the distance from home, free. From an entry list we keep the number of entries, never a name, and ratings read before October 9, 2026 are deleted 30 days after their event. Anything that is not on USTA's list, such as a camp or a practice match, you add with + Add, and everything downstream works the same: dots, reminders, and the match-day flow. A canceled tournament shows as canceled and leaves the calendar.

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