The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be either a single game, a series of games, or a tournament, and may use a single-elimination system or one of several other different playoff formats. Playoff, in regard to international fixtures, is to qualify or progress to the next round of a competition or tournament.
A tournament is a competition involving at least three competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses:
- One or more competitions held at a single venue and concentrated into a relatively short time interval.
- A competition involving a number of matches, each involving a subset of the competitors, with the overall tournament winner determined based on the combined results of these individual matches. These are common in those sports and games where each match must involve a small number of competitors: often precisely two, as in most team sports, racket sports and combat sports, many card games and board games, and many forms of competitive debating. Such tournaments allow large numbers to compete against each other in spite of the restriction on numbers in a single match.
The International Tennis Federation (ITF) is the governing body of world tennis, wheelchair tennis, and beach tennis. It was founded in 1913 as the International Lawn Tennis Federation by twelve national tennis associations. As of 2016, there are 211 national and six regional associations that make up the ITF's membership.
In an organized sports league, a typical season is the portion of one year in which regulated games of the sport are in session: for example, in Major League Baseball the season lasts approximately from the last week of March to the last week of September. In other team sports, like association football or basketball, it is generally from August or September to May although in some countries – such as Northern Europe or East Asia – the season starts in the spring and finishes in autumn, mainly due to weather conditions encountered during the winter.
A single-elimination, knockout, or sudden-death tournament, is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final match-up, whose winner becomes the tournament champion. Each match-up may be a single match or several, for example two-legged ties in European sports or best-of series in North American pro sports. Defeated competitors may play no further part after losing, or may participate in "consolation" or "classification" matches against other losers to determine the lower final rankings; for example, a third place playoff between losing semi-finalists. In a shootout poker tournament, there are more than two players competing at each table, and sometimes more than one progresses to the next round. Some competitions are held with a pure single-elimination tournament system. Others have many phases, with the last being a single-elimination final stage, often called playoffs.
There are a number of formats used in various levels of competition in sports and games to determine an overall champion. Some of the most common are the single elimination, the best-of- series, the total points series more commonly known as on aggregate, and the round-robin tournament.
A wild card is a tournament or playoff berth awarded to an individual or team that fails to qualify in the normal way; for example, by having a high ranking or winning a qualifying stage. In some events, wildcards are chosen freely by the organizers. Other events have fixed rules. Some North American professional sports leagues compare the records of teams which did not qualify directly by winning a division or conference.
The Peru First Division, officially known as Liga 1, is the top flight of association football in Peru. It has been referred to as Torneo Descentralizado since 1966, when the first teams residing outside the Lima and Callao provinces were invited to compete in the inaugural league national competition.
The 2006 FIVB Women's World Championship was the fifteenth edition of the competition, contested by the senior women's national teams of the members of the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB), the sport's global governing body. The final tournament was held from 31 October to 16 November 2006 in Japan.
The 2002 FIVB Women's World Championship was the fourteenth edition of the tournament, organised by the world's governing body, the FIVB. It was held from 30 August to 15 September 2002 in Berlin, Bremen, Dresden, Münster, Schwerin, Riesa, Leipzig, and Stuttgart, Germany. The tournament saw the discontinuation of Cuba's historic eight consecutive world titles, as the team finished fifth after being eliminated by the United States in the quarterfinals.
The 1956 FIVB Women's World Championship was the second edition of the tournament, contested by the senior women's national teams of the members of the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB), the sport's global governing body. It was held from 30 August to 12 September 1956 in France.
European Champions League (ECL) is the seasonal table tennis competition for the highest ranked European club teams and is regarded as the most important international club competition in Europe. It is organised by the European Table Tennis Union (ETTU) and replaced the European Club Cup of Champions (ECCC), the previous prominent club competition, since the 1998/99 season. Originally there was only a men's competition; a women's competition was introduced in the 2005/06 season. The competition starts in September and the champions are usually determined in May in recent years.
The 2008-09 Primera División season was the 118th season of top-flight professional football in Argentina and the nineteenth season in which the Apertura and Clausura system is used.
The Europe Top 16, also known as the Europe Top 16 Cup and previously known as the Europe Top 12, is a table tennis tournament organised annually by the European Table Tennis Union (ETTU), featuring the highest-ranked players in Europe.
The Table Tennis World Cup has been held annually since 1980. There had been only men's singles until the inauguration of women's singles in 1996 and team competitions in 1990. The team competitions, the World Team Cup, were canceled until the relaunch in 2007, and now held in odd-numbered years. The competitions are sanctioned by International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) and classified as R1 in rating weightings, B2 in bonus weightings in the ITTF world ranking. In the years 2021-2023, the event has been suspended. A new WTT series, WTT Cup Finals, began in 2021. In 2023, ITTF announced the return of the ITTF World Cup under an innovative Mixed Team format. After the Mixed Team World Cup 2023, the Federation announced that both of the Men's and Women's World Cup will return in 2024 with the first revival event taking place in Macao, China.
The 2014 FIVB Women's World Championship was the seventeenth edition of the competition, contested by the 24 senior women's national teams of the members of the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB), the sport's global governing body. The final tournament was held from 23 September to 12 October 2014 in Italy.
The Liga Uruguaya de Básquetbol is the most important professional club basketball league in Uruguay. It is organized by the Uruguayan Basketball Federation (FUBB). The Uruguayan Basketball League competition began in 2003. Before that time, the Uruguayan basketball championships were only local metropolitan, and no competitions brought together all the clubs in the country. Until the Liga Uruguaya de Básquetbol was created, the capital clubs participated in the Campeonato Uruguayo Federal de Básquetbol, while the clubs of the rest of the country competed in regional tournaments. The Uruguayan Federal Basketball Championship was founded in 1915, making it among the oldest on the continent.
The 2014–15 A Group was the 91st season of the top division of the Bulgarian football league system, and 67th since a league format was adopted for the national competition of A Group as a top tier of the pyramid.
The 2018 FIVB Women's World Championship was the eighteenth edition of the event, contested by the senior women's national teams of the members of the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB), the sport's global governing body. The final tournament was held in Japan from 29 September to 20 October 2018. The final four was held at the Yokohama Arena in Yokohama.
The 2022 Badminton Asia Team Championships was the fourth edition of Badminton Asia Team Championships, held at Setia City Convention Centre in Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia, from 15 to 20 February 2022. This championships was organised by the Badminton Asia with Badminton Association of Malaysia as the host organiser. It was sanctioned by the Badminton World Federation. It served as the Asian qualifiers for the 2022 Thomas & Uber Cup in Thailand. Indonesia, the three-time champions, and Japan were the defending champions of the men's and women's category respectively.
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