Marko Banušić for SportyPlus

Posted on Sep 13 Originally published at sporty.plus

How to Prevent 30-Minute Gaps Between Court Bookings

A court can look almost fully booked and still contain time that is practically impossible
to use. One of the most common examples is a 30-minute gap between two reservations.

Consider this schedule:

17:00–18:00   booked
18:00–18:30   available
18:30–19:30   booked

Technically, the court is available for 30 minutes. In practice, that time may be very
difficult to use, because most players want a normal full-length court reservation.

For a busy tennis, padel or pickleball club, these small gaps can add up across multiple
courts and days.

How do 30-minute booking gaps happen?

Imagine a court is completely free from 17:00 until 20:00. A player books 17:30–18:30.

The calendar now contains:

17:00–17:30   available
17:30–18:30   booked
18:30–20:00   available

The first 30 minutes may now be unusable.

The player did nothing wrong. The booking system simply allowed a reservation that created a
short gap.

Why does a 30-minute gap matter?

For many clubs, 30 minutes is too short for a normal court reservation.

If this happens occasionally, it may not matter. But if several courts repeatedly contain
30-minute gaps during busy periods, the club can lose a meaningful amount of usable court
time.

Imagine six courts each losing one 30-minute period during an evening. That is three hours
of court availability that may be difficult to use. Over weeks and months, those small gaps
can become significant.

Prevent the gap before the reservation is made

The simplest approach is to prevent a booking when it would create an isolated 30-minute
gap.

For example, if there is already a reservation starting at 19:00, the system can prevent
another reservation from ending at 18:30 if this would leave the court empty only from 18:30
to 19:00. The same logic can work on the other side of a booking.

Instead of administrators manually checking the schedule, the booking system applies the
rule automatically.

Example

Court availability: 17:00–20:00. Existing booking: 19:00–20:00.

A player wants to book 17:30–18:30. That would create:

17:00–17:30   available
17:30–18:30   booked
18:30–19:00   available   ← isolated 30-minute gap
19:00–20:00   booked

The 18:30–19:00 period becomes a 30-minute gap. If the club does not normally offer
30-minute court reservations, that time is effectively wasted. Preventing that booking
structure helps keep the court schedule more usable.

Why automate this?

Without an automatic rule, administrators would need to notice problematic reservations
after they are already created. They might then need to contact players and ask them to move
the booking.

That is inconvenient for both the club and the player. It is better to prevent the problem
at the moment of booking.

Don't overcomplicate the rule

The purpose is not to create a complicated scheduling algorithm. For many clubs, one simple
rule is enough:

Do not allow a reservation if it creates an isolated 30-minute gap between bookings.

This solves a specific operational problem while keeping the booking process understandable
for players.

How SportyPlus can help

SportyPlus can prevent players from creating isolated 30-minute gaps between court
reservations. The rule is applied automatically during the
booking process.

If a selected reservation would create an unusable 30-minute space in the schedule, the
player needs to choose another available booking time. This helps clubs keep their court
schedule cleaner and make better use of available court time.

Practical recommendation

Look at several busy days in your booking calendar. If you regularly see schedules such as:

17:00–18:00   booked
18:00–18:30   empty
18:30–19:30   booked

then preventing 30-minute gaps may be worth enabling.

It is a small booking rule, but across many courts and reservations it can make the schedule
significantly more efficient.

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