Tennis Ladder has messaging built in, so you can sort match details without swapping phone numbers. Tap the 💬 icon at the top of the app to open your messages.
It's instant. Messages arrive on the other person's screen in a fraction of a second — no refreshing, no waiting. If your connection wobbles, the app quietly falls back to checking every few seconds, so nothing is ever missed.
Match chat. Every game gets its own chat automatically — accept a challenge, agree a friendly or fill an open game, and a channel appears with everyone who's playing. The agreed time is pinned at the top, and the ⋯ menu lets you view the players, jump to the game, or invite someone (handy when a doubles seat needs filling). When the game is done and dusted, the channel retires by itself.
Direct messages. You can also message any adult member at your club directly — open a player from the Players tab (or any ladder) and tap Message. It's one ongoing conversation per person: any singles matches you arrange together appear in the same thread, just like a normal messaging app.
Stickers and emoji. Tap the 😊 in the message box for quick-reach emoji (Tennis, Faces and Hype) and our own tennis sticker pack — ACE!, the 6–0 bagel, GG, MY COURT and more. Stickers send with a single tap. Your phone keyboard's full emoji set works too.
Courtside banter. The same 😊 sheet has a row of one-tap pre-match one-liners — "Hope you've been practising 👀", "Loser buys the drinks 🍻" and friends. They're a fixed, friendly set (nothing to moderate), they land with a cheeky shake, and they work in junior match chat too because there's no free text involved.
Don't have the app? No problem — if you're messaged and you don't have the app (or notifications turned on), we'll send you an email with the message and a Read & reply link that works in any browser. Get the app from the App Store or Google Play to hear about messages instantly.
Keeping it safe and friendly.
- Messages are text, emoji and our own stickers only (no photo sharing), and unfriendly language is filtered.
- You can mute any conversation from the ⋯ menu — you'll stay in the chat but stop being notified.
- Read receipts. Under the last message you sent you'll see "Read" with a time once the other player has opened it — live, no refresh needed.
- Block & report lives in the same menu for direct messages. Blocking hides the conversation for both sides, and reports go straight to the organisers.
- Messages are tidied away automatically after 90 days.
Junior match chat (parents and guardians). Juniors don't have open messaging — an adult can never message a junior on Tennis Ladder, and juniors aren't in the players directory. What they can have, with your say-so, is match chat: when your child has a match on with another junior — a ladder challenge or a junior-to-junior friendly — that game gets a chat so they can arrange it.
- Under 16, it's off until you say yes. Every player's parent or guardian has to allow it, or the chat stays locked for everyone in the match.
- Under 16, you see everything. You get a copy of every message by email — and the app tells the players that, up front.
- From 16, they manage it themselves. Where we hold a date of birth, 16- and 17-year-olds can use match chat without the guardian switch (and without the email copies). Everything else on this list still applies to them.
- Your switch, any time. Turn it off from any of those emails, or in the app under More → Family (shown when your email is on your child's membership). Turning it off locks the chat again immediately.
- Kept on Tennis Ladder. Phone numbers, email addresses, links and social handles are blocked in junior chat, and there are no photos or GIFs — text, emoji and our tennis stickers only.
- The chat lives and dies with the match. No ongoing junior DMs.
- Something not right? The ⋯ menu has Report to club — your club organisers are emailed straight away.