In a double elimination tournament, a competitor must lose two matches to be eliminated. This creates two parallel brackets — a Winner Bracket for competitors who have not yet lost, and a Loser Bracket for competitors who have lost once. The champions of each bracket meet in a Final Bracket.
​

This feature is part of SportsPress Pro.
​

When creating or editing a tournament, open the Details meta box and set Format to Double Elimination. The main content area then shows three separate meta boxes:
​

The generic Bracket meta box used for single elimination is hidden when double elimination is selected.
​

The Winner Bracket behaves exactly like a single elimination bracket. Teams that win every match stay here. The data for this bracket is stored in the same sp_event meta key as a single elimination tournament. The bracket editor, round labels, team assignment, and result entry work identically to single elimination.
​

The Loser Bracket receives teams that have lost one match in the Winner Bracket. Its data is stored separately under the sp_loser meta key. The bracket editor is the same table layout as the Winner Bracket, with its own set of round-label fields and match slots.
​

Because the Loser Bracket has a specific structure — losers feed into it in a staggered pattern — alternate match slots in the first round of the Loser Bracket are automatically hidden. These hidden slots represent the "bye" positions where the incoming losers have no immediate opponent from within the Loser Bracket. The hidden/forced slots are not displayed on the frontend.
​

The Final Bracket is where the Winner Bracket champion faces the Loser Bracket champion. Its data is stored under the sp_final meta key. The Final Bracket editor shows only the relevant match slots; other positions in the grid are hidden automatically based on the rounds count.
​

Double elimination uses the same Teams selector in the Details meta box as single elimination. The selector controls the number of rounds, which determines the starting team capacity:
​

The rounds limit applies equally to double elimination: the same sp_tournament_rounds_limit filter (default 6) caps both formats. There is no separate hard limit for double elimination in the source code.
​

Enter results in the Results fields of each bracket editor in the same way as single elimination — two score fields per match separated by a dash. When you save, the winner of each match is determined from the event outcome configuration and automatically placed into the next available slot.
​

Each bracket (Winner, Loser, Final) has its own set of editable round-label fields in the table header. Labels for each bracket are stored independently (sp_labels for the Winner Bracket, sp_loser_labels for the Loser Bracket, sp_final_labels for the Final Bracket).
​

On the tournament page, the three brackets are rendered in sequence with heading labels:
​

These section headings come from the translatable strings registered in the text options (__( 'Winner Bracket', 'sportspress' ), etc.) and can be customized under SportsPress > Settings > Text.
​

The Winner panel (tournament champion), bracket sections, and group tables appear in this order on the page:
​

Each bracket section renders as an HTML table identical in structure to the single elimination display. The same display options apply — logos, venue, event links, team links, and layout (Default or Center).
​

The [tournament_bracket] shortcode works the same way for double elimination. It detects the tournament type automatically and renders all three bracket sections:
​

All shortcode attributes described in the single elimination article apply here as well (show_logos, show_venue, link_teams, link_events, responsive, layout).
​

The same global settings under SportsPress > Settings > Events > Tournaments apply to double elimination brackets:
​