How do you run a tennis ladder?

Six decisions, in this order.

1. Get ten names you can actually contact. Ten is the floor. Below that a ladder collapses into the same two players every week, and two more weeks of recruiting beats opening with six.
2. Split them into level bands if the spread is wide. A band holds players of roughly one standard. Most ladders run two or three. Bands are what stop a new member's first match from being a formality.
3. Pick a season length and publish the dates. Six, eight, ten or twelve weeks, twelve at most. A rung earned in March means nothing in November. If your group plays year round, run the ladder open-ended instead and let decay keep the order honest.
4. Set the two clocks and leave them alone. A challenge reaches up to five rungs, the player challenged has five days to respond, and the two of them have thirty days to play.
5. Make the result require both players. The winner enters the score, the loser confirms, and a timer confirms it if the loser says nothing.
6. Decide what happens to the player who goes quiet, before it happens rather than after.

Step six is where most club ladders come apart. What organizers get covers the tools, and the ruleset covers the defaults. To put your own rules in writing, copy the tennis ladder rules template.