MLP Atlanta – Live Random Thoughts
It is another MLP weekend, which means it is time for everyone to work as a team regardless of whether you are team PPA or team MLP. We had a number of articles leading up to the event to get you all set, including Premier and Challenger previews as well as 6 things you need to know about season 2. You can check out the rosters for all the teams at this table here. Challenger starts on Thursday, Premier starts on Friday and the semis and finals will be on Sunday. We’ll do our best to keep you up to date on the results and provide commentary on those results as we know it is nearly impossible to keep track of 24 teams over the span of 4 days.
Final Sunday, September 24rth
10:20 am EST (Waggish) – SF #1: Orlando Squeeze def. AZ Drive (3-2) – AZ David/Glozman v Orlando Bright/Rohrabacher. A quick game with the Orlando team putting a heavy foot on that accelerator. AB/Rachel made short work of David/Glozman. 21-13.
AZ Arnold/Bar v Orlando Navratil/Daescu. Drive get a very sloppy win 23-21. Post-match, Dekel’s serve is being challenged but it was ruled legal.
AZ David/Arnold v Orlando Bright/Daescu. Nice rally at 14-9. Ironically, Bright won Orlando the game with her drives. 21-15.
AZ Glozman/Bar v Orlando Rohrabacher/Navratil. Surprisingly, the weaker AZ team get a good lead 7-1. Bright must have infused Zane with some of her energy as he came to play after the end-change. In a twist, Dekel had trouble returning Zane’s serve. Then Zane does an in-your-face celebration of his ATP which was hilarious. Now tied at 11. Rohrabacher now needs to step up and do her part with Glozman playing so well. Tie at 17. AZ win 23-21. Rohrabacher couldn’t hold up to the power from Dekel’s overheads. Zane played lights out after the end-change.
Dreambreaker order: Julian v Andrei, Dekel v Zane, AB vs Glozman, Rachel vs David. End round 1: 9-7 Orlando. End round 2: 21-10 Orlando wins! Andrei’s reach helped him against Julian’s quickness. Zane looked the most comfortable out there in singles.
11:45 am EST (Waggish) – SF #2: DC def. Miami (3-0) – DC Kawamotos v Miami Black/Harris. See rally at 4-7. Kawamotos win 21-15.
DC Newman/Alshon v Miami McGuffin/Staksrud. Alshon on left! See rally at 7-7 for some awesome gets by Miami. Alshon and Riley are mixing it up a lot. Alshon not afraid to step in front of Riley to give the opponents something different. Odd to see Kyle coaching DC when he assists Tyson on McGuffin camps and co-hosts on his podcast. Tight game with tie at 17. At 19-18, Riley does a Bert and Miami challenges it as a foot fault. Looks clean on replay – which also shows an impressive balanced athletic landing from Riley. DC wins 21-19.
DC Jackie K/Alshon v Miami Harris/McGuffin. Alshon played the best mixed game of his life. Jackie stepped up to his level too. 21-12!
Side note: All of the paddles of the DC team were collected. I wonder how soon they get them back for practice/warm-up before Final.
3:20 pm EST (Waggish) – Final Orlando def DC (3-2) – DC Kawamotos def Bright/Rohrabacher 21-16. That’s a good win for them against aggressive players.
DC Newman/Alshon def Navratil/Daescu 21-12. Newman left, Daescu left. Wow, Alshon and Newman really showing up and covering that court. They are well in sync in how they see the court play. Zane switched to left which helped their aggression. See rally at 17-10.
Orlando Bright/Daescu def Jackie K/Alshon 24-22. Tied at 16. Squeeze doing a good job with speed-ups getting them a lead. They focused some plays on Christian and neutralized him with body shots. Some long balls from Christian get Orlando the win. Jackie’s play was impressive with how she covered when Alshon was unable to get to the ball.
Orlando Rohrabacher/Navratil def Jade/Newman 22-20. Jade can’t respond to the direct attacks. DC settle in and manage tie at 20. Jade looked tight most of the game and had some high balls that Orlando was ready to whack into the court’s foundation.
Dreambreaker: Daescu (2) v Alshon, Zane (4) v Riley, Anna (3) v Jackie, Rachel (2) v Jade. 11-5 end of round 1. Daescu (1) v Alshon, Zane (2) v Riley, Anna (4) v Jackie, Rachel (3) v Jade. 21-10 Orlando wins! Well played by them.
5:11 pm EST – What a damn final of MLP. Orlando looked left for dead down two gender doubles matches and the prospect of their #2 mixed team playing Riley/Jade. Riley no clutch gene? It’s another instance of one of best players in pickleball not coming through. That’s said somewhat in jest, but it’s fascinating that he couldn’t get it done. DC put together a really good team and we might have them as the favorites for the next event. They just couldn’t close the deal today. On the other hand, Orlando may only get better. Rachel Rohrabacher is going to improve and it’s scary how good she is already. Zane and Andrei were underrated as men’s players and have done enough to warrant those spots they were selected at. Anna Bright was our MVP pick and anchored this team. Not to mention getting the Squeeze to trade down from #3 to #5 and taking the risk on Rohrabacher with the 4th round selection. Really fun weekend.
Saturday, September 23rd – Premier RR and QF, Challenger Finals
12:30 pm EST – Orlando def. Bay Area (3-1) – In a battle for first place, Orlando comes out of top and goes 3-0. The biggest winners from this have to be Anna Bright and Zane Navratil. Bright for picking Rachel Rohrabacher and Navratil for proving a few ridiculous people that he’s not a Challenger player. Rafa Hewett and Lea Jansen are 0-3 in mixed and that has to be rectified if they want to make any noise in the playoffs.
Texas def. Atlanta (3-1) – Parris Todd was essentially bragging on the Inside MLP podcast that the GM listened to her to take Simone versus the other people in the room wanting to draft other players. It does not work out in event 1 as Atlanta goes 3-0, proving all the haters right. They get the women’s match but nothing more. Rettenmaier/Johnson close the deal (25-23) to get the meaningless win as Travis is 5-1 on the tournament. Something to monitor is that Jorja Johnson loses in women’s doubles once again.
Miami def. Columbus (3-1) – Miami is off to the playoffs as Columbus needed a replacement for another illness as Tina Pisnik slotted in for Dizon. Allison Harris got her first win in women’s doubles. Collin Johns loses in men’s with JW to Tyson/Federico and that’s a 1-2 weekend for those two. It’s hard to say when you don’t have your top female pick, but Miami has to be feeling good with a playoff appearance after picking up Allison Harris.
2:00 pm EST – Dallas def. Utah (3-1) – There’s the Dallas we thought could be in the mix. Jay Devilliers making the small sample size over the hill remark possibly look a little silly as he wins both his games. Ignatowich/Jones lose the only game for Dallas to Wilson and Irina. Kyle Yates loses both his matches, including an ALW partnership, but ultimately this match doesn’t matter as the teams had no shot on game differential. That means both Utah and Dallas are out.
Chicago def. DC (3-2) – Dreambreakers are volatile. We’ll say it a million times. Ben is 6-0 on the day, steps up in the Dreambreaker and the Kawamoto’s Dreambreaker luck runs out. This is the danger of playing for a Dreambreaker. You can talk about flawed roster construction all you want but Ben has two players he can win with. He has only gotten help in one other match but this bad Dreambreaker team on paper is 1-1. Slice should take first place in the group on head to head, but we can’t remember how this works. It should be head to head.
Brooklyn def. Arizona (3-2) – This match didn’t have any consequence for playoff implications other than seeding. Arizona should still be the top seed in its group due to head to head over Miami. Brooklyn gets a win despite having Tardio fill in for Patriquin again. It’s cool to see how emotional Brooklyn was in its win despite the result not mattering for anything. Dekel Bar and Vivian Glozman has not been a successful partnership so far. Keep an eye out for that in the playoffs.
4:15 pm EST – SoCal def. Las Vegas (3-2) – A really fun Challenger final with the Hard Eights coming out on top in a Dreambreaker. The women of SoCal haven’t been quite as dominant as expected but the men have been significantly better than anticipated. CJ/Ewa lost their mixed to Barr/Smith, but Fought/Yana barely scraped out their match to go to a Dreambreaker. Man, does Yates Johnson make a lot of errors. The Hard Eighths are a strong Dreambreaker team with their women and they got it done. CJ Klinger got our MVP vote and he wins MVP.
6:30 pm EST (Waggish) – QF #1 Arizona def Bay Area (3-2) – MD AZ Arnold/Bar vs Bay Area Garnett/Hewett. Neither of the men teams dominated so it was a close match with frequent ties. Arnold played left. Near the end, Garnett lost some speed-up battles and AZ win 21-18.
WD AZ David/Glozman vs BA Jansen/Wright. Lots of shadows on the court. The middle has been a problem for Jansen/Wright in first half allowing David/Glozman to lead 11-7 at the end-change. The other side seems to help Jansen/Wright along with some UE from Glozman and they tie at 13. Once the score got to 20-20, it was Glozman’s errors that gave the win to Jansen/Wright 24-22. So 1-1 going into mixed.
MXD AZ Glozman/Bar vs BA Jansen/Hewett. Neither of these teams have good mixed results, both are 0-3! Jansen/Hewett had a good lead but Glozman/Bar chipped away at it until a tie at 16. Bar had to step up his aggression because Hewett was killing him. Glozman never ready for how fast the ball comes back. Jansen/Hewett win 21-18.
MXD AZ David/Arnold vs BA Wright/Garnett. Both teams went 2-1 yesterday but based on their wins, you’d expect David/Arnold to be the stronger team. Wright/Garnett held up very well and showed they were a strong contender at the tie at 20. Watch Garnett at 21-20 to tie it. He almost had to knock Wright’s BH out of the way to win the point. The other partner shouldn’t be interfering when the partner is working the point. AZ wins 25-23 to make it 2-2.
Dreambreaker: Julian v Connor, Dekel v Rafa, Glozman v Wright, David v Lea. At end of round 1, it is 9-7 AZ. At end of round 2, AZ have taken a substantial lead at 19-13. Dekel played his points well. Lea way under-performed. AZ win 21-14. They’ll play their SF at either 8 or 10 EST – TBD.
3:05 am EST – Ben Johns does not get it done. Lange/Schneemann had a match point that Lacy dumped into the net off a drive. They aren’t a Dreambreaker team at all and there’s only so many times you can overcome the roster they have for a Dreambreaker. It will be Miami moving on and an impressive semifinal for a team that needed a fill in player. Anything more is 100% gravy.
Arizona is a team we were wrong about. Dekel and Glozman have been terrible in mixed together but, outside of that, the team has been tough. Their men have been really strong and Julian is playing like a worthy first round selection. Bay Area has to be disappointed but they had a solid run overall.
Friday, September 22nd – Premier Round Robin and Challenger Playoffs
12:10 pm EST – Miami def. Brooklyn (3-2) – The drama is damn real at MLP! Tyler vs. Tyson after all their podcast beef (which is so 2023) and a lot of emotion after Loong/Parenteau finally got the best of Harris/McGuffin (26-24) to push it to a Dreambreaker. Loong gave the crowd the McGuffin “can you hear me?” sign after winning. Of course, they get matched up in the Dreambreaker with Tyson going 4 straight against Tyler to start and it was off to the races from there. Tyson took 7 of 8 from Tyler overall. Allison Harris, despite 2 losses, looked very strong as an undrafted Premier player. High stakes and was oh so close to 2 wins, and she came up big in the Dreambreaker. This first match was not the best look from this Brooklyn team as they barely clawed their way to a Dreambreaker.
Orlando def. Texas (3-1) – The Squeeze starting off the day right. 2 wins from Rachel Rohrabacher in her first go at MLP and 2 losses for Lauren Stratman following her almost holdout. Jorja Johnson continues to struggle in women’s and play well in mixed, getting another W with Travis Rettenmaier after being down 20-15. Travis Rettenmaier also continues to struggle in men’s to get wins. Squeeze are solid all around and will be a tough out.
Arizona def. Columbus (3-2) – Tough loss for Columbus. They lose 21-18 in the first Premier Dreambreaker of the day (6th total so far). Collin Johns still can’t get wins in men’s doubles and Dekel Bar still struggles in mixed. Julian Arnold 2 wins and a strong Dreambreaker leading his team to victory. Not a good start for the all energy Columbus team.
Bay Area def. Atlanta (3-1) – One of, if not the, worst team on paper starts off with a loss. Atlanta got one win with Hunter/Parris over Lea/Rafa in mixed, and almost took the men’s match, but it ends with a 3-1 loss. Simone/Pablo losing 21-14 to Connor/Etta has to be tough as that is their #1 mixed team. We’ll see how Atlanta does the rest of the way here.
1:55 pm EST – New Jersey def. California (3-1) –This was not a complete surprise but the way it happened was. The 5’s men lost, but Tina Pisnik was unsuccessful in both of her matches. The women of the 5’s stepping up big here after getting through on the slightest of point differentials. Alix Truong tweeting out the 21-5 scoreline from yesterday with no commentary might not have been a good omen. California will have questions going forward and whether either of their men are to be replaced. The Alix Truong pick was the biggest miss of the draft considering Yana Newell was there for the taking. S
Seattle def. NYC (3-1) – The biggest issue for NYC appeared to be Sarah Ansboury. No delaminated paddle and her movement looks to be worse again. We may have overestimated her experience with how much a lot of these players are getting better. Ansboury lost both of her matches and NYC was only able to get the mixed match with Jaume/Braverman. Seattle is going to be a tough match-up again for the Hard Eights, who they lost to in group play. Seattle has two strong women and Pat Smith is a steady force.
2:10 pm EST – DC def. Utah (3-1) Group B (Waggish) – Kawamotos took on AL and Irina and won WD! AL playing with her new signature paddle and she may not be fully adjusted to it. Kawamotos even won some hand battles against AL. MD start was delayed because Koller and Newman forgot to get their paddle tested. We see cousins AJ and Thomas back together against first time partners Riley and Christian. Koller on fire and slipping some balls past Riley. A tie at 9 shows how close this game is! Christian’s Erne at 13-11 was sorta a quick flick shot. He is playing the right side well. Coach Kyle very active at time-outs sharing what he is seeing on the court. Koller started stacking and he’s on the left which has won them some points. But DC win their 2nd match. Jackie and Christian vs AL and AJ tight game with tie at 14. Nail biter finish goes to Utah 23-21. Irina and Thomas vs Jade and Riley. Jade is impressively stepping up to this high pressure match! Riley celebrates hitting Thomas when he’s down (tripped). Irina doing a great job returning the bullets being fired at her from Riley. Thomas and Irina could have won this with a lesser MXD male than Riley. But Riley’s MXD skills really stood out.
3:25 pm EST – Arizona def. Miami (3-1) Group C (Waggish) – Staksrud/McGuffin looked weak against Bar/Arnold. Staksrud played left which he got comfortable playing with left-hander Tellez. McGuffin hasn’t played right in a while with his ex-partner Ignatowich (Cincinnati was their last time together). WD AZ Glozman/David vs Miami Black/Harris. David is the veteran player and you can expect her to help coach Glozman along. Black can’t do the same for Harris it looks like. AZ women take a decisive victory 21-12. Staksrud/Black vs Glozman/Bar. Finally, Miami gets a win with the solid play by Staksrud/Black 21-12. David/Arnold vs Harris/McGuffin. McGuffin covers the middle and Vivienne says okay I’ll just go down the line. 21-10 for AZ. McGuffin was so dominant that Harris never got into any kind of rhythm.
Chicago def. Dallas (3-1) Group B (Waggish) – Jay and Callie won their mixed against Erik and Lacy 23-21. The WD was close at 24-22.
3:40 pm EST Bay Area def. Texas (3-2) Group A (Waggish) – Lea/Etta win their match against Jorja/Lauren in a close 21-18 finish. Garnett/Hewett vs Dylan/Travis. Dylan in his right side role. Travis has been promoting himself to play right with Riley. He is okay on the left but I’ve seen more power from Dylan. But they win in a close 21-19 finish. So 1-1 going into mixed. Dylan/Lauren vs Connor/Etta. I expected Dylan would pair with Jorja as he should be very comfortable with her style of play. But Travis played with her on the Smash so they must want to stay partners. Dylan/Lauren came up short on their weapons. I’m not even sure they had a speed-up. Bar Area easily take this one 21-12. Lea/Rafa vs Jorja/Travis goes to Texas 21-16. Dreambreaker! Dylan v Connor and Travis v Rafa. Jorja v Etta and Lauren v Lea. Bay Area had the winning formula 21-12.
4:00 pm EST Orlando def. Atlanta (4-0) Group A (Waggish) – Jardim/Tellez vs Rohrabacher/Navratil was a fierce battle with constant ties including 20-20. Eventually, Orlando make it a clean sweep 26-24.
6:07 pm EST – Las Vegas def. New Jersey (3-2) Two Challenger semis, two Dreambreakers. This one was oh so close to going the other way. Susannah Barr/Spencer Smith barley pulled it out over Stefan/Shelby (27-25) and that gave their team room to breath as they lost the next mixed match en route to a Dreambreaker. Someimtes maybe there is only so much luck that can go your way if you are the 5’s. You get to the playoffs on point differential of less than 0.5% and it’s a heartbreaking 21-19 in the Dreambreaker.
SoCal def. Seattle (3-2) – Talk about a roller coaster. The women of the Hard Eights dropped another one and it wasn’t that close to Fudge/Padegimaite. The Hard Eights men have been better than expected, getting another win in very convincing fashion over Smith/Burrows. The turning point could have been the first mixed match where Newell/Fought had opportunities to close a big comeback down 20-16 against Lina/Pat Smith. However, Klinger/Ewa smoked Fudge/Burrows and the Dreambreaker was a ride. Fudge was thrown out there first for a second day in a row and gave CJ Klinger all he could handle. Pat Smith had an overhead late in the Dreambreaker that he sprayed long and that was really the difference. Fought had one match point and made it count as he needed to because Burrows was up against Yana next. Crazy match.
7:20 pm EST (Waggish) – DC def. Dallas (4-0) Group B – DC Kawamotos defeat Dallas Jones/Smith 21-13 with the steadiness for which they are known. DC Riley/Christian battle against James I. and Jay D. James started on the right but they switched it up to him on the left across from Alshon. Jay and James had good strategy to push Riley and Christian off the line and keep them back. Alshon did a beautiful ATP at 20-16. And they win it on their next serve 21-16. First mixed is DC Jackie and Alshon vs Dallas Jay and Callie. We see fast-paced action that is close at end-change 11-10. DC collects another win 21-16. Jade and Riley defeat Allyce and James I 21-14 for another sweep.
8:00 pm EST (Waggish) Utah def. Chicago (3-2) Group B Utah AL/Irina defeat Chicago Lacy/Jessie with their domination at the net 22-20. It got close after the freeze at 20 due to some errors by Irina. AL looked like she wanted to just push her off the court at one point. Chicago Johns/Lange vs Utah Koller/Wilson is close with frequent ties. Neither side is pulling away until 14-14. Then Johns/Lange clearly show they have the edge with attacks on Koller. It’s 1-1 with the Chicago MD win 21-17. First mixed is Jessie and Ben vs AL and Thomas. Thomas seemed to struggle. I didn’t detect any kind of game plan on his returns. Al tried to make something happen but Thomas couldn’t read her mind and wasn’t prepared. 21-8. Second mixed Koller/Irina vs Erik/Lacy. Lacy takes a BH OH at 10-7. I totally don’t understand why Erik wouldn’t have taken a step over and take that OH with his FH. Koller played well and they win 21-14 to tie it. Dreambreaker line-up: Ben v Thomas, Lacy v AL, Erik v AJ, Jessie v Irina. It is Utah 12-4 when 2nd round begins. At 3rd round, 20-12. Thomas just has to get one point off Ben on his serve. Now it’s up to AL. She does it 21-16. Kyle Yates will step in for Koller on Saturday.
11:30 pm EST – MLP is really like no other. Lots of fire. Tyson vs. Tyler. Ben vs. Anna Leigh. Big thing from today is that it appears Ben’s flawed roster construction may be real. This is an average women’s team and a below average second mixed team. Ben went 4-0 but they had to go to a Dreambreaker against Utah where it was lights out. Jessie Irvine is unplayable in Dreambreakers. Anna Leigh was not dominant again today. 2-2 and she was big mad after losing to Ben in mixed.
DC looks like the best team out there through 2 games. They might have the best women’s team and they have plus men’s and mixed pairings all around. Rachel Rohrabacher and Tyra Black showed out extremely well on day 1. Risk it for the biscuit and those risks are currently paying dividends. Last thing to mention on the positives are the AZ Drive who looked very strong today. Julian Arnold showing as a first round pick and no issues with the drama of whether he would show up.
4 teams at 0-2. Atlanta is who we thought they would be. Dallas stuck in the group of death so who knows but they haven’t looked like a top team. Jay Devilliers could just be over the hill. Brooklyn a surprise 0-2, but it hurts not having a healthy Patriquin, who sat out the 2nd match due to illness. Texas looked like a middling team at best and going 0-2 is not shocking.
Thursday, September 21st – Challenger Round Robin
11:05 am EST – New York def. Milwaukee (3-1) – All the matches were close, as to be expected most of the time with this no freeze rally scoring, but our expected team prevails here. Jillian Braverman wins both of her matches and NYC was able to steal a men’s match, 26-24, that they probably shouldn’t have won. We’re going to see some funky high scores this weekend as teams trade side outs on match points kind of like a tiebreaker can be in tennis. Honestly, Jaume Martinez Vich’s doubles game doesn’t really look ready for primetime but it is going to be masked to a degree by playing with two veterans, Braverman and Yates. The DJ Young experience in Challenger is 0-2 so far and he looked a bit defeated during some of his mixed match.
New Jersey def. Frisco (3-2) – Our first Dreambreaker of the weekend! Frisco was actually able to get both the gender matches here, but the strength of this 5’s team is its mixed because of the strong men. Cincola plays a sneaky strong mixed and Auvergne is a Challenger beast. Neither of these teams are really built for a Dreambreaker so this one could have gone either way. New Jersey is 1-0 and the poor Pandas without a win.
1:18 am EST – Las Vegas def. Florida (3-1) – This one really should have been 4-0. Susannah Barr and Spencer Smith were up huge on Long/Esquivel, and the rally scoring format allowed them to come back to win 24-22. The only team that won a match were the two veteran players for Florida, but their inexperience is a problem with Schick and Schaefer. One match down but they were not close for the most part. Las Vegas is going to be a tough team in this Challenger division.
California def. Austin (3-1) – It was a 3-0 for BLQK before the 4th match was played and their only loss was Truong/Brown being beat by De La Rosa/Tammy Emmrich. BLQK’s men made a comeback in game 1 against Newell/De La Rosa and that was huge for them. Their men are the biggest question. Pisnik/Truong rolled as did Scarpa/Pisnik. It seems like Pisnik is just a different level than most of these women. Austin, on the other hand, is in trouble if their men don’t win. All of these comments are based on such a small sample size but, so far, things are playing out true to form.
So Cal def. Seattle (3-1) – The men of SoCal remain a question mark as that was their only loss in this matchup. However, their women are elite and that was the difference here. Lina Padegimaite and Megan Fudge being taken ahead of Yana Newell was a big mistake for Seattle and it comes back to bite them directly in this matchup. Fought being able to play with Newell creates a 1(a) and 1(b) mixed type of situation so if SoCal can get any production from their men, it could be a scary team. This is the 3rd MLP event in a row that SoCal has won their first match of the day, but the last two times they have failed to get out of pool play. Will today be different?
St. Louis def. Los Angeles (3-2) – Our 2nd dreambreaker out of 6 matches so far today. St. Louis’ women were the difference in the Dreambreaker. However, Jordan Kinney out here proving Lauren Stratman right and that he belongs. It really shows the depth of men in pickleball overall. Kinney lost in men’s but pulled out the win in mixed to get to a Dreambreaker. The big thing with Kinney is he seems to have strong hands. Still, it’s a got to be concerning for the Shock their #1 mixed team of Nunnery/Erokhina lose to Kinney/McMillan. St. Louis pulls it out and it’s going to be tough for LA to win with their singles situation not being great, which is why the Kinney pick remains baffling. Brooke Buckner did not look to be moving well in the Dreambreaker.
1:31 pm EST – Milwaukee def. New Jersey (3-1) – DJ Young coming in clutch in the last mixed match as the Mashers get a huge win over the 5’s. He came up with what had to be the most DJ Young experience shot that DJ Young could come up with for a winner. Go and watch it back if you missed it. The Mashers lost their first men’s match but were able to pull out the next 3 for the win. The Teoni/Gecheva spanking (21-14) of Bates/Auvergne was most surprising, and it does seem clear that Shelby Bates continues to be too inconsistent as a player. Both of these teams are now 1-1 and will have big matches to conclude pool play.
New York def. Frisco (3-1) – Poor Frisco. They just can’t get a win. Jillian Braverman goes 4-0 to start the day as she and Martinez Vich got the game clinching mixed W to finish off the match. Braverman has come close to losing with Ansboury in women’s both times, but she shouldn’t have fallen so far in Challenger. Oshiro/Mick got the lone win for Frisco in mixed after they decided to flip flop mixed partners. It is not over for Frisco necessarily but they have a huge uphill battle to climb along with needing some help to get 3 teams finishing at 1-2.
4:00 pm EST – Las Vegas def. Austin (3-1) – Unsurprisingly, Las Vegas is 2-0 to start the day and they will be heading off to the playoffs. But we had some fireworks with a little physical action off the court between Daniel De La Rosa. Watched it back and it appears some chirping was going on (there may have been a play that couldn’t be a challenge), and De La Rosa didn’t like the chirping from Smith. After the match was over between De La Rosa/Emmrich and Barr/Smith, De La Rosa went over to Smith, got in his face and appeared to give him a slight shove to knock him off balance (update: it looks like this was actually Smith’s girlfriend who gets in the mix and her arm to keep Spencer away put him off balance). Then Tammy Emmrich started having words with someone who appears to be Spencer Smith’s girlfriend. They eventually break up and you can hear on the stream someone saying “get your trash girlfriend out of here”, but it is unclear who says that. If someone can provide us the full context, that would be appreciated. Anyway, the only match LV lost was their men with De La Rosa/Newell taking down Yates Johnson/Spencer Smith. The weakest part of this LV team is their men so that’s okay for them. Austin is just not strong enough with their women. Milan Rane and Tammy Emmrich does not stack up all that well. Las Vegas will play California for first place later.
California def. Florida (3-1) – This group is going as expected. California had a bit of a scare after taking the first two gender doubles game but then having Pisnik/Scarpa losing to Michelle Esquivel/Brendon Long with Esquivel taking a page out of the Altaf Merchant school of dinking. However, Schaefer/Schick couldn’t get it done and we’ll have to expect Florida will be making a move for one of those two after this event. Their women got spanked by Truong/Pisnik.
Seattle def. Los Angeles (3-1) – Yes, Jordan Kinney has shown he’s not out of place but that doesn’t make the pick right. Mad Drops fall to 0-2 and will play for their life in their third match of the day. Kinney loses in men’s and mixed, Tardio wins his mixed match. Imagine this Mad Drops team with Pat Smith on it or even Callan Dawson.
SoCal def. St. Louis (3-1) – SoCal pulls this one out despite their women losing the first match. Klinger/Fought were barely able to get the win against Nunnery/Emmrich and Radzikowska/Klinger played a tight one against Nunnery/Erokhina as well. This team’s strength is still it’s women and if Klinger/Fought can pull out the odd win, this team is scary at Challenger. Fought and Klinger are both playing a strong mixed right now. The Hard Eights are now 2-0 and will have a matchup with the 0-2 Mad Drops to lock-in a bye.
5:49 pm EST – Milwaukee def. Frisco (3-2) – Poor, poor Frisco. Frisco and Milwaukee. Heartbreak in the third Dreambreaker we have seen today. They were down 2-0 after the gender doubles matches, won their mixed matches to tie it up, were tied 16 all in the Dreambreaker with Ryler returning DJ’s serve, but they couldn’t close the door. Not a completely unexpected 0-3 for Frisco, but it was close to being a better day. Milwaukee goes 2-1 on the day after losing to NYC in their first match. DJ Young has not been a dominant Challenger player so far, but they have done just enough to win a couple of matches. Unfortunately for Milwaukee, they are not going to make it through on a tiny point differential percentage difference of less than 0.5%. 3 teams at 2-1 in Group A and they were tied with the 5’s in game differential, which means it comes down to points won percentage. Brutal.
New Jersey def. New York (3-1) – Big turnaround from the 5’s after an early loss. They win their women’s match handily, lose the men’s, and then win both mixed matches. Alli Phillips and Shelby Bates both stepped up in a big way, and they had to win this without heading to a Dreambreaker to make it through. They end up 2nd in the group with NYC in 1st. The pool play of only 3 games is such a small sample size and really doesn’t give enough margin for these teams to show what they can do. At the same time, the drama is what we love about MLP and literally every point matters in these rally scoring games. Heartbreaking for Milwaukee. Elation for the 5’s.
Las Vegas def. California (3-2) – Tina Pisnik/Alix Truong tuning up Barr/Truong (21-10) is very notable, but it wasn’t enough for California. Las Vegas goes 3-0 as they win in Dreambreaker #4 on the day.. Pisnik/Truong have been a dominant women’s team so far, but Las Vegas overall has such a solid team. Having two women that can be really solid in mixed makes such a difference in these matches. It has been all chalk from what we expected with who is advancing from the groups so far.
Austin def. Florida (3-1) – In a battle of teams fighting to not be 0-3, Austin gets the win. Florida actually won a women’s match, which is not a great sign for the Rane/Emmrich pairing, but they go on to lose the next 3 matches. Schaefer and Schick aren’t ready. These two teams both are not making the playoffs.
6:50 pm EST – SoCal def. Los Angeles (4-0) – Big day for the Hard Eights as their men go 2-1, which makes beating them a scary proposition. Fought has proved up to the task in both men’s and mixed. For Los Angeles, they are in a terrible spot. They have a pregnant Brooke Buckner who is going to miss the 2nd event and they have a 2nd male in Jordan Kinney who shouldn’t be in Challenger, even if he is a very capable pickleball player. Gabe Tardio wasn’t enough to overcome what this team built.
Seattle def. St. Louis (3-2) – Dreambreaker #5 to wrap up the day goes to ***. Seattle throwing out Megan Fudge out there first against Nunnery. She went 6-2 overall, Pat Smith went 6-2 against Martin Emmrich and that was all she wrote for St. Louis. It may be dangerous to trust the YouTube comments but Rob Nunnery apparently has a 1-12 mixed record at MLP in 2023 as he couldn’t get it done with Judit Castillo in this match either. Nunnery’s APP mixed results have not been good overall in 2023 and he went 1-5 today as the #1 overall pick in Challenger. This is a partner game but St. Louis has to be looking for more from its #1 overall pick.
That’s it for the day. It was a fun day but rather predictable for an MLP event from day 1. No one appears to be extremely dominant in Challenger like we had last season with the Breakers. We’ll see with the playoffs tomorrow. The Hard Eights and Night Owls both have byes. Premier starts tomorrow!
DJ won his mixed match
Right, thanks
I only saw the snippets of the DLR and Smith confrontation on X and Instagram. In slow mo, it looked to me like it was Smith’s gf who pushed Smith – presumably she wanted to say something “important” to DLR and Smith was blocking her path. I vaguely recall some other incident with the gf becoming involved post-match at a PPA.
Yes this is correct. We have changed what we wrote about. A wild situation regardless.
Typo in the Las Vegas def. California (3-2) game
Tina Pisnik/Alix Truong tuning up Barr/Truong (21-10) should be Barr/Ackerman
Yes, thank you!
How is this going to work in 2024, some of these players are just straight up bad and not ready for this level. Kinney hasn’t played a single tournament all year, Shaefer, shick looked like belonged in a different division. I don’t get it, lots of really good players not drafted and the level of play is bad.
Kinney has a surprisingly high DUPER rating. One of the highest in the challenger leagues. It’s probably why he was drafted. But his performance shows that maybe DUPR isn’t the best judge of play.
I feel like BJ will destroy some of these players and many games will be foregone conclusions and massacres once they eliminate the challenger league. The disparity is too great.
He also had advocates likely from Julian Arnold/Lauren Stratman who would be close to the Mad Drops. The DUPR is high but he hasn’t played a tournament since October 2022. We’ll see what they do next year. No foregone conclusion they eliminate the division completely.
Kinney is not MLP signed. You could argue that Schaefer and Shick still have upside in them but they don’t look ready for Challenger right now.
Nunnery has indeed gone 1-12 in mixed in MLP this year. His partners have been Gaytan-Leach, Carr, Frantova, Erokhina, and Castillo. Getting handled by Fudge in the dreambreaker is not a great look, either. He’s supposed to be a borderline Premier player.
He says he’s a Premier player and was drafted #1 overall. At a certain point, you have to elevate your partners especially in mixed where the man is supposed to do that.
a commenter on another post pointed this press release out on the MLP website….
https://www.majorleaguepickleball.net/news/major-league-pickleball-founder-steve-kuhn-to-become-minority-owner-in-majority-of-mlp-teams/
This is big news and should be discussed. Obviously, it shows that MLP owners couldn’t have been wild about the massive spending increase in pro pickleball.
Yes we may have to discuss at some point here. Thanks!
So are Julian Arnold/Lauren Stratman playing this weekend?
Ron: Yes. Lauren posted they had no contractual obligations to play but they worked out their individual situations and were able to make the event.
Do you think by “worked out their individual situations” mean some cash was paid . 😉
No I don’t think any new cash was paid. My speculation is that they realized what it’d do to their reputations if they didn’t show.
No we don’t think that
Ron: Jimmy on the KOTC podcast (Loong’s podcast) said Lauren/Julian did ask for some type of compensation, not necessarily cash, to play. Jimmy didn’t specify what they got, if anything.
Regarding “Lauren posted they had no contractual obligations to play …,” Julian and Lauren voluntarily entered the MLP draft, right? By entering the draft, didn’t they agree to play if drafted? It would make the draft meaningless otherwise, and screw the teams that drafted them. Wonder if they changed their minds and decided to play because of the merger?
P.S. The team table link you posted isn’t working for me. (“There was a problem with the request. Sorry about that. Please try again ….”). If you can post the plain text rosters, please do.
PPS. I follow the pro game pretty closely, but find it hard to follow the results. More info in the tv screen would be helpful, eg. each team’s record, its changes of advancing, the current standing in the group stage, etc.
Old: You should try the link again. Sometimes you get that error message when Airtable’s server is busy. But here is the raw text:
Group,Team,DUPR
A,**Atlanta Bouncers**,24.90
A,Parris,5.92
A,Hunter,6.53
A,Pablo,6.59
A,Simone,5.86
,,
C,**AZ Drive**,24.87
C,Dekel,6.68
C,Julian,6.87
C,Vivienne,5.91
C,Glozman,5.41
,,
A,**Bay Area Breakers**,24.86
A,Lea,5.91
A,Etta,5.73
A,Connor,6.54
A,Rafa,6.68
,,
C,**Brooklyn Aces**,25.21
C,CP,6.01
C,Andrea,5.80
C,Hayden,6.73
C,Tyler Loong,6.67
,,
B,**Chicago Slice**,24.87
B,Ben,7.16
B,Jessie,5.63
B,Lacy,5.65
B,Erik,6.43
,,
C,**Columbus**,24.84
C,JW,6.99
C,Meghan,5.62
C,Maggie B.,5.57
C,Collin,6.66
,,
B,**DC**,25.48
B,Riley,6.90
B,Jackie K,6.02
B,Jade K,5.87
B,Christian Alshon,6.69
,,
B,**Dallas**,25.43
B,James I,6.83
B,Callie,5.94
B,Allyce,5.79
B,Jay D,6.87
,,
C,**Miami**,24.56
C,Federico,6.77
C,Tyson,6.78
C,Tyra Black,5.32
C,Mary B,5.69
,,
A,**Orlando Squeeze**,25.27
A,Rohrabacher,5.74
A,Anna Bright,6.02
A,Andrei,6.71
A,Zane,6.80
,,
A,**Texas Ranchers**,24.95
A,Dylan,6.79
A,Jorja,5.73
A,Lauren,5.62
A,Travis R,6.81
,,
B,**Utah Blk Diamonds**,25.52
B,AL,6.21
B,Irina,5.83
B,Thomas W,6.75
B,AJ Koller,6.73
The results are very very very hard to follow on MLP’s website. I thought about making a table to track it all. It is so frustrating when any competent programmer could write a program for MLP in one week to input the data on a smart phone and it’d update a website that was visual “at a glance” to track results. I rely a lot on X posts to figure it out – and not from MLP which is all about promotion and almost no facts.
The MLP events are very hard to follow. A lot going on.
I’m not surprised DC is dominating the group of death. Riley is Riley, Alshon is solid, and the Kawamotos are damn good. Ben’s new team, Chicago, appeared to be less good than his Seattle team, and that has played out. Lange and Schneemann were not good at all in mixed or singles vs Utah. There was a lot of talk about Utah being a favorite, but I was not as high on them. I was going to post that AJ is an error machine, but, really, the entire team is. AL and Thomas started their mixed game against Ben/Jessie by making several errors, then spent the rest of the game giving Ben high balls to smash.
Dallas had a disastrous day, finishing with a -6 games NET.
This group plays their final matches at 12pm EDT on Saturday. Obviously, DC is already into the playoffs and could get the #1 seed with a win against Chicago. Because Chicago has a better games NET than Utah, Utah pretty much has to beat Dallas and hope DC beats Chicago. If Chicago and Utah both lose, Chicago will get the playoff spot.
DC definitely seemed like the favorites coming into this. Ben’s roster construction being flawed is a real thing. We also were not as high on Utah and it’ll be interesting what the Yates substitution does for them today. Dallas was surprisingly poor for us as we thought they could be a balanced team that gives teams trouble.
Good comments, Dan. Any predictions on DC vs Chicago? Kawamotos should win WD. My main concern with MD is that Alshon will play tight when facing Ben. And if he hits high balls, Ben will demolish them. Alshon and Jackie should get the win over Erik and Lacy on paper. So it could come down to Riley/Jade vs Ben/Jessie. A dreambreaker is a real possibility too.
I have to think the DC women will win, plus one of the mixed games, to send it to a dreambreaker. DC should be favored in a DB.
This is looking like it will be right.
We are part way through but looks like a Dreambreaker could be in the cards if the men pull this out. 13-6 right now.
Thank you for all your time and posting.
Thanks, David
Dallas has been playing so poorly, very surprising. Group of death is surely part of it, but just 1 win all day?
If Riley and Alshon are now bathing together, I guess this partnership has some legs — DC looks very tough. I’m surprised any team is able to dominate the group of death, I thought they’d all have middling records and thus be at risk in points against other groups.
I also thought Irina’s MLP luck would get ALW over her MLP bad luck, but apparently it’s the opposite. I think they’ll be alright — DC has to be favored to crush Chicago, and Dallas hasn’t been able to beat a Girl Scouts team, Utah should easily handle them, putting Utah and DC as the two teams to come out of group.
Alshon is playing well and seems very worthy of that 4th round slot now. DC is scary so far but we’ll see how this Slice match finishes up. We’ll see if Utah can figure some things out here but Irina is likely overrated for MLP purposes.
Riley rallied Christian when he hit a few long balls – keeping the team upbeat. The ice bath shared misery hopefully works for today. I’m assuming misery as I have no experience with one.
It is strange that Orlando is able to use that orange/yellow jersey being so close to the ball color?
Possibly? It’s not quite close enough to the ball color though probably.
Wow, Utah is an absolute disaster. They are currently down 0-3 to a Dallas team that got clobbered yesterday, so Utah is officially out and Chicago is into the knockout round. Anna Leigh finished this tournament 2-4, very bad. AL and Irina got clobbered in women’s today.
Irina’s MLP reputation for winning is apparently not as strong as ALWs MLP rep for losing
Good one haha.
ALW definitely should not be the number 1 overall pick and is even questionable at #2
OK, Eric Lange has returned to Earth. Slice are doing as best they can — Ben / Jessie way ahead probably gets them two wins, but then another dreambreaker against DC?
OK, not even close, Slice blows them out with a total spanking. What the heck is going on, it’s complete chaos
They almost got it done twice. Lange had match point with Schneemann in the QF too.
Went to my first MLP event! This is so so so much better than attending a PPA. Imagine when MLP adds an amateur tour? I’ll be there. The crowds will be legit!! I’m a pickle nerd and I have some thoughts from my short time trying to watch everything that I could.
First of all, what was Dallas thinking of when they put Devilliers on the left in men’s for day 1? This basically took Ignatowich out of the game. He wasn’t able to hit the ball, and do his forehand speed ups, because the other teams just wanted to dink it to Jay, and totally isolate him! Then they switched it today, and put Ignatowich on the left. And they won, and looked like way better team. They attacked Ignatowich a few times early and got stuffed! Hands of lightning!
Second observation is, why does collin Johns only win with Ben? JW is one of the best men’s players, and they went 1-2. I don’t know if I’d draft him in premier. He’s also not really a supportive teammate, it looked like. He didn’t look like he cared, but who knows. I’m not saying they’ll drop him after this event or anything, but maybe not deserving of premier next time.
Lastly, I’m a little concerned with the product when it comes to the challenger women. I haven’t been playing for too long, and I’m pretty sure I’d beat at least some of them. It looks like the challenger men are always at least experienced players, but some of the women look pretty lost out there. I guess that will fix itself as the game grows? When is Eugenie Bouchard coming into the mix? Looking forward to that! Haha
Interesting to hear your thoughts about MLP. On the Ignatowich thing, that is an attempt to replicate the Tyson situation with James where he can have a smaller focus on his game but it clearly didn’t work in the time they tried it. This is only a theory on Collin with Ben but it is the fact that he built his game completely around Ben. He doesn’t play with other people and there’s only one Ben Johns out there who takes court the way Ben does. Collin should not be a Premier player it seems quite clear at this point.
We don’t know how good you are but it depends what Challenger women you’re talking about. It is pretty unlikely you would beat the Challenger women or have any sort of shot unless you were some kind of legitimate, non-senior 5.0 plus player. But the depth of the female talent pool is an issue and something that should sort itself out over time as more women enter the sport.
You mentioned that Rafa Hewett went 0-3 in mixed with Lea. Rafa also went 0-3 with Anna Bright in San Clemente. I’d say that’s a problem.
Rafa did finally win in mixed with Lea in the quarterfinal.
They did get one
Those were two very enjoyable Premier semifinals. Zane was hitting lasers with ridiculous spin in the dreambreaker. DC made a good choice picking Alshon over AJ. Christian played well in men’s and very well in mixed. The Kawamotos have become favorites of mine. They are so good. Before the tourney I thought Orlando and DC looked like contenders to win (assuming Rohrabacher was solid), so I’m not surprised at all they are both in the final. It should be a good match.
This was a really fun day overall.
There have been some questions about the Ben’s construction of the Chicago team. I think many people are being too results oriented. We could have easily seen either of these results instead:
– DC beats Chicago (and Utah beats Dallas) – Chicago goes 1-2 and does not make it out of group play.
– Chicago defeats Miama in women’s doubles – Chicago goes to the semi-finals.
Here is my attempt at a less results-oriented analysis of the team construction:
– Ben banked that he would win his two matches. Erik Lange has a strong backhand counter. When Ben takes up a lot of court, Erik can sit on his backhand and be very solid. Jessie Irvine is very patient and consistent, which meshes well with Ben’s style of play.
– Ben figured Jessie and Lacy had enough firepower to match up against most other teams. He assumed they would win at least 50% of the time.
– Ben hoped Erik and Lacy would pull some games out if Chicago was leading 2-1 and the other team was feeling the pressure.
This is a pretty good strategy to get to 3 wins in a match. At worst, Chicago goes 2-2 in a match and rolls the dice in the the dreambreaker.
Chicago experienced the worst case in each match though!
– Erik and Lacy went 0-4 in mixed (-21, -14, -9, -20).
– Jessie and Lacy went 1-3 in women’s doubles. Their one win was an unlikely comeback against Callie and Allyce.
Chicago goes 1-2 in dreambreakers and ends up losing in the quarterinfals.
Picking Ben at #1 means the team will be constructed around him. If we want to constructively criticize, then let us discuss alternatives choices that allow Ben to consistently win while also allowing for some combination that gives Chicago that third win.
– Who do you pick at 24 and 25 that matches up well with Ben? Remember, Ben wants to wear opponents down with consistent, strategic play.
– What Challenger player do you instead pick at 48? Certainly not Nunnery!
I think this sort of analysis would be fun to do for all the teams. I would probably start with Utah next.
Remember, Ben’s prior MXD ‘B’ team — Loong/Dizon — went 0-6? Some terrible record for an entirely decent team on paper.
We’ve seen that Ben can get his two wins somewhat reliably, which is a miracle in the dice roll known as MLP. If we accept that drafting Ben means the rest of the team won’t be up to par against their competitors (now that teams aren’t drafting so poorly anymore), then perhaps the argument to be made is that Ben needs to build the team around himself even more, and thus build for singles.
So Ben will get his two wins, the rest of the team can’t get anything done reliably, which means singles. Slice had three matches decided this way, that’s telling. So maybe lean into it, because Ben clearly has the advantage against anyone in singles, so if the rest of the team does as well, maybe the team goes further.
Or maybe that’s overreacting. Lacy/Jessie were very close against Harris/Black. Maybe slightly better picks can make the difference, but looking back on the draft, Ben’s picks were pretty good, even with hindsight. I do think drafting Tardio might have made enough of a difference over Lange, especially in singles, but one area of drafting that is never discussed is navigating the minefield of players that hate each other — maybe Tardio has a problem with the Johns, and thus Gabe wasn’t an option?
The one thing that happened with Ben’s other mixed team that did not happen as much here is Loong/Dizon faced the #1 mixed team of opponents because their women one so much making their ability to counter mixed an easy choice. This time, Lacy/Erik couldn’t get it done more often than not against the #2 mixed teams of opponents. They almost did it in the QF with their one match point. Ben’s surrounding parts, particularly the women, were more reliable last time. Lacy was an upside player who is still making a ton of mistakes out there whereas Dizon became a higher 2nd round pick. Tardio may not have fit well with Ben so it’s not that obvious but he would have provided more in mixed and singles. Tough balance.
There is real value in picking someone you feel you can win 95% of matches with. Hence, why we are generally okay with the Erik Lange pick in a vacuum. The problem was his women’s picks preceding that one, especially with Irvine, who is a black hole of a Dreambreaker player for the most part. You have a bad singles player in Jessie, it’s hard to then say I’m going to complement this team with Erik Lange, a below average but still competent enough singles player. Jade Kawamoto was there to be taken at one of those female spots and that could have changed this whole team. You could have gone Jessie with her or Lacy at those spots. Chicago experienced worst case from their other parts and that could even itself out over the next two events. The fact is that Ben did not lose the entire event and he needed just a little bit more help.
Great championship match! Orlando looked finished, but they clawed their way back to win in the dreambreaker. It was a bit shocking to see the Kawamotos perform so poorly in the dreambreaker. That was the difference. For Riley, this one has to hurt. The Squeeze really stepped up big time. Anna Bright is a great team leader. If they ever have another draft, I might put Anna ahead of ALW.
I shake my head when people in comments or the YouTube live chat say that watching pickleball is boring. Good pickleball, like what we’ve seen today, is damn fun to watch. The speed and skill is ridiculous. I can’t wait for the next event. Fortunately, the season two events are much more closely spaced, so it’s only six weeks away.
Awesome match. Never thought they would do it after losing both gender doubles matches. It’s hard to appreciate pickleball if you don’t play it but we sure enjoy it obviously.
I actually don’t play pickleball, but I love it. I discovered it on one of the cable sports channels in January 2022. I’ve been watching PPA, religiously, since then, and MLP this year, along with all the online pickleball content.
Dan: As a non-player, what do you think of the commentating in the booth? It drives most players who are also devoted spectators crazy and we end up muting a good portion of it.
I don’t mind most of the commentary. One or two of them may talk too much at times and make me respond, “huh?”, to a silly comment, but it doesn’t bother me too much. I’ve never even thought about muting the audio.
You are the one person who comments on our blog that might be in this boat
I misse dekel’s serve is being challenged. Can it be any worse than Tyson McGuffin ?
Ron: Both Dekel and Tyson look like they are serving above the waist. But it’s really hard to watch real-time and even on the replay where you can slow it down. Tyson’s been called a few times on his foot being over the center line at point of contact. Dekel’s serve on the challenge looked like both his feet might have been in the air at time of contact. For viewers, the replay didn’t show his left foot because his partner’s feet blocked it. His right foot was clearly in the air. The challenge was easy to miss because players had already taken the court for warm-up after the MD ended and the announcers didn’t catch it until late.
People talk about Tyson’s serve more because you see him more often on the live stream than Dekel. And of course Stanley’s kneeling on the ground at PPA certainly draws attention to it.
What’s this about kneeling? Don Stanley does that? To better see Tyson’s contact point? Por favore, Jannish.
Old: Yes, Don Stanley kneels down to watch Tyson’s server when he’s had complaints from the opponents. Ironically, Tyson’s MLP teammate was the one to complain when Staksrud/Tellez played McGuffin/Ignatowich at the Newport Beach Shootout back in April. Here is what I wrote at the time: “In game 2, Staksrud got heated about Tyson’s serve. Don sternly said “I’m watching, I’m watching”. At 10-4, the serve looked illegal to me but Don was kneeling and turned towards the baseline and didn’t call it.” This was not the only time Stanley has done the kneeling because as you can imagine, Tyson’s serve is called into question a lot.
Have you ever played and seen a serve challenged on the contact point? It seems like this is called on more Non-pro level players than pros?
Interesting. Thank you for responding. Do other refs kneel? I have not seen that. I’d be curious, if anybody keeps stats, how many times serves (and whose) have been have been called illegal.
Federico’s serve looks like it has a high contact point too. I have not read any comments about it.