Points to attempts made by the competitors (7)
I believe the answer is:
entries
'the competitors' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'points to attempts made by' is the wordplay.
'points' becomes 'en' (two compass points).
'to attempts' becomes 'tries' ('try' can be a synonym of 'attempt').
'made by' says to put letters next to each other (letters written or made by another set of letters).
'en'+'tries'='ENTRIES'
(Other definitions for entries that I've seen before include "Items listed" , "Initiations" , "making appearances on stage" , "Contestants" , "those given admittance" .)