Matchmates
Swipe to find someone to play with, or a team to challenge. Here is exactly how a card, a match and a game work.
How it works
Matchmates lives on one page with two modes. You swipe on cards, a mutual like opens a conversation, and from there you meet on a court.
Partner mode
Player cards, one at a time. This is where you look for someone to play with, and for a future ranked partner.
Challenge team mode
Team cards instead of players. The tab only appears once you belong to at least one ranked team, and a mutual like there leads to a real ranked game.
Nobody is in the deck by accident
Only players and teams who created a card and left it active can be seen and swiped. No card means you are in nobody’s deck, and you cannot see anyone either.
Pause whenever you want
One switch in the settings puts your card on pause. It leaves every deck immediately, in both directions, and your card, your matches and your conversations stay saved. One tap brings it back.
Not a dating app
Matchmates exists to fill a court, not to date. Every Matchmates conversation opens with the same reminder, and anything that misses the point can be reported in two taps.
Beachmates is not a dating app. Let's talk volleyball ;)
Your player card
Creating your card is a five step form. Everything but the photo is optional, and you can change all of it later in the settings.
A real photo, no anonymous cards
A profile photo is required to publish a card, and the deck skips anyone without one. Uploading opens a cropper, which produces both your round avatar and the tall portrait used on the card. This is the honest trade of Matchmates: you show your face and your name to be able to see other faces.
About you
Height, playing hand, a bio of up to 200 characters, and what you are really good at, picked from spike, cut shot, defense, block, serve and setting. Height and hand are prefilled from your profile when you have set them.
When you play
Weekly slots, added in one tap with the day pills and the morning, afternoon, evening and all day presets, then fine tuned slot by slot. The slots already saved on your profile are loaded for you.
Your area
Pick a city and a search radius in kilometres, 15 by default. The city is a point on the map, never your live position, and your radius is never shown to anyone.
Search filters
Optional and reversible: players who have access to a court only, a range of medals, and a team goal between men’s, women’s and mixed, which needs your gender on your profile to work.
Up to five more photos
Your profile photo is photo one. You can add five more, reorder them and remove any of them. They are what swipers browse right after your face.
See your own card
The settings show a live preview rendered by the very same component as the deck, so what you read is exactly what other players see, including the paused state.
The team card
A Challenge card belongs to a ranked team, not to you. Since a challenge commits a slot, a court and the monthly ranked quota of four players, the captain drives it.
The captain sets it up and swipes
Only the team captain edits the team card and swipes for the team. A teammate is not locked out: the Challenges view stays open to read the challenges and the proposals, and the team page is where the role can be passed on.
What is on it
Both players, or the team logo when the team has one, the team medal, the times you can both play, your city and radius, and the court you can host on when you say you have one.
Which teams you see
Teams whose radius crosses yours, who share at least one slot with you, whose team medal is within one tier of yours, and who do not share a player with your team, so a team can never challenge itself.
A teammate who stays hidden
If a member chose not to show their identity, their name and photo are not published on the team card: swipers see a neutral placeholder instead. The captain who published the card is always named.
Swiping, and the match
One card fills the screen. The gestures are the ones you expect, and every action also has a button.
Like or pass
Drag the card to the right to like, to the left to pass, and the stamp that appears tells you where you are before you let go. The two round buttons below do the same without a gesture. A like that is not returned is confirmed by a short message, so you know it went out.
Reading a card
Tap the left or the right side of the photo to browse the gallery, and scroll up to open the panel with the bio, the strengths, the availability and the place. Scrolling never triggers a like: the vertical gesture is handed back to the page.
Undo the last swipe
The small arrow button brings back the card you just left, as long as that swipe did not create a match. A match opens a conversation, and that is not undone from the deck.
It is a match
When you both liked each other, a full screen match appears with the two photos, and Say hi opens the conversation. Keep swiping puts you back on the deck, and the match waits for you in the Matches view with its counter.
The conversation
A match creates a real conversation in your messages, with unread badges like any other. Its header carries two actions: Add friend, which sends a friend request, and Form a team, which opens team creation already filled with the two of you.
Report and block
The menu on the card and the menu in the conversation both offer Report and Block. Fake or stolen photos is the first reason offered, a single photo can be reported on its own, and a blocked player leaves both decks in both directions.
From a match to a court
In Challenge mode nothing is booked by a verbal agreement in the chat. A game exists only once a proposal has been accepted.
Challenge the team
The captain likes the other team’s card. When both captains have said yes, the challenge is on and the two captains share a conversation.
Talk it over
The chat is free. The two teams agree on when and where, exactly as they would by message.
Propose a game
Propose a game asks for a date, a time and a court. The slots you share are offered as shortcuts, the courts that work for both teams are listed, and any other court can be picked. The time is the time at the court, not the time on your phone.
The other captain accepts
Accepting creates the real ranked session on that court, signs up all four players, reserves their monthly ranked quota and locks the court. If the court was taken in the meantime, the proposal is refused with a clear message and you pick another slot.
The proposal that writes itself
When your two cards leave exactly one shared slot and exactly one possible court, and a court is free, the proposal is posted for you the moment you match, already filled in. Nobody has to compose anything.
Decline, and propose again
There is one pending proposal at a time per challenge. Declining marks it as declined and opens Propose again for both teams, and a new proposal replaces the previous one.
Who is told what
A team match notifies every member of both teams, a proposal notifies the other team, and a decline or an acceptance notifies everyone involved, the acceptance pointing straight at the new game. A match also arrives by email, to both players in Partner mode and to all four players in Challenge mode, unless you turned the Matchmates category off in your email preferences.
What Matchmates shows, and what it never shows
A card is meant to be read by strangers, so it says a lot about how you play and very little about where you are.
What swipers see
Your name, your photos, your medal once your placement is done, your height and playing hand, your bio, your strengths, your weekly slots, your city and a rounded distance, and your verified badge when you have one. Never a rating number, and never your exact location.
A rounded distance
The distance between two cards is computed from the two chosen cities and rounded to the kilometre before it leaves the server. It is shown as an approximation, and your search radius stays private.
The different schedule badge
The deck starts with players who share a slot with you. When there is nobody left, it falls back to players inside your radius whose times do not overlap yours, and says so on the card with a badge instead of pretending.
Who can see your card
Only signed in players who also have an active card, whose radius crosses yours in both directions, whose medal is within one tier of yours, who have not swiped you yet, and whom neither of you has blocked. Banned accounts are out.
The honest part about anonymity
Everywhere else on Beachmates you can take part without showing who you are. A Matchmates card is the exception, and a deliberate one: publishing a card shows your real photo and your name to the players who can see it, even if your profile is set to hide your identity. That setting keeps protecting your check-ins, your games and the public pages, not your card. What protects you here is that nothing is published until you create the card, that the pause switch removes it instantly, and that only the narrow circle above ever sees it.
Your extra photos are not public
Your profile photo is public. The photos you add live in a private storage bucket and are served only to signed in members allowed by the same rules as the deck, plus the players you already matched. Each one can be reported and hidden on its own.
Your card, your slots and your photos are personal data: they are part of the account data you can export, and they are deleted with your account.
Ready to find a partner?
Build your card once, then swipe. You can pause it whenever you want.
Open Matchmates