A round robin is a sports tournament in which each contestant is matched with every other contestant. It's also a petition in which the signatures are arranged in a circle, like spokes of a wheel, in order to conceal the order of signing. A round robin has nothing to do with red-breasted birds. The name is probably based on the French ruban (ribbon). In the seventeenth century, French monarchs sometimes ordered the death of the first person who signed a petition that displeased the Crown. In order to disguise the order of signing, the names were written on an endless, circular ribbon, and no one could be identified as the instigator of the petition. Later, sailors in the British Navy modified the round robin, using the wheel spoke pattern to hide the order of signing. It was not until the late 1800s that "round robin" was applied to sports tournaments.