MLP New York City 2025 – Live Random Thoughts

Everything is on the line this weekend. Our preview for the weekend is here. Kick it here for our live blog throughout the weekend.

Sunday, August 24th – Finals

8:45 pm EST – Columbus def. New Jersey (3-1 and win series) – There are no more words for the Sliders at this point. You take out all the best teams. You deserve every accolade and most importantly, the championship. We wonder if the clutchest player to ever play the game, Anna Leigh, suffered from the wanting it too badly syndrome. 0-3 in mixed against Andrei and Parris is a shocking result in the finals. Anna Leigh is still amazing but it wasn’t meant to be for her championship yet.

On the other side, huge performances all around from the Sliders. Daescu was a beast everywhere, Klinger stepped up in men’s along with Daescu and did his thing in mixed and Dreambreakers, Todd was a beast and Jansen got it done in Dreambreakers and that last mixed. Really strong team performance. Reminiscent of that Joe Flacco Ravens Super Bowl run.

5:26 pm EST – Las Vegas def. Nashville (3-2 and win series) – It all came down to a Dreambreaker after playing a bunch of them against one another this season and it was anticlimactic one with Vegas steamrolling Nashville . Las Vegas survives 3 men’s losses in the finals and it is ultimately their Dreambreaker lineup that saves them. It was 22-20 for Las Vegas in the midseason tournament but that felt like more than anomaly than the norm.

It’s unclear what Las Vegas will do going into next year. This is a team that barely got out of Challenger with this version of their team and there is likely going to be a lot of money spent by other teams. None of the Premier promoted teams from last year were able to field a decent team in 2025, so it will be very tough for the Night Owls to do it in 2026.

4:00 pm EST – Columbus def. New Jersey (3-2) – Man, what a ride of a match. This is probably the best outcome for everyone’s sanity to avoid a replay call in the first mixed match being the overriding topic of conversation. Regardless of where you sit on the debate, we can all agree that you get what you pay for and UPA not investing in this part of their business is not great when it can impact the results on its biggest stage.

It feels a little like Dallas deja vu as the Johnson’s lost two mixed matches and now ALW has done the same to close. Anna Leigh looked on tilt in the Dreambreaker demanding a hindrance call for something that was so not obviously a hindrance. The problem for the 5’s is that they may be due to lose a women’s or #2 mixed match here and it doesn’t look like their men are going to get it done. This is scary stuff and if ALW is not feeling superhuman we could be in for an incredibly fascinating finish to the season.

12:55 pm EST – Nashville def. Las Vegas (3-1) – This Nashville team remains resilient. They get a regulation win over the Night Owls after winning both genders matchups. The men for the Night Owls have not been able to find their stride and it’s tough for Las Vegas if their women aren’t winning. We get a game 3 and it should be good drama.

9:50 am EST – It’s a bit of a scary proposition for the Sliders that they didn’t take advantage of the match where ALW lost. You just have to think that won’t happen again. If that is true, it means they are going to need one of their Lea Jansen lineups to get a big win. Those games yesterday all finished so quickly and there was no time to get into them. So we have to expect they will be closer today, but it’s also hard to expect that those matchups will flip in favor of the Sliders.

Saturday, August 23rd – Finals

6:50 pm EST – Las Vegas def. Nashville (3-1) – This one was tight with some theatrics. Las Vegas’s women barely won 12-10 and the men for Nashville tied it up. James Delgado shushed the Nashville bench after a game dealing Erne. Tomorrow should be good!

1:56 pm EST – New Jersey def. Columbus (3-2) – It wasn’t the best pickleball we have ever seen with only 100 total rallies for the match per Real Clear Stats but we got a Dreambreaker which makes for ultimate drama. It seemed like Andrei Daescu’s singles heater couldn’t continue forever and he had some bad luck go against him in the first run. It gave the 5’s some room for error after Parris impressively split with ALW after two rounds. Howells took it to Daescu (8-4) and then Dizon was the other difference maker going 5-3 against Lea Jansen. The Dizon 2nd go was the tipping point as she came into it 14-14 and left 17-15.

Parris and Andrei have been completely insane together. They steamrolled ALW and Howells to push the match to a Dreambreaker. None of the doubles matches were close. The Columbus men remain undefeated.

Also, how many net cords were there in this match? A ridiculously high percentage.

2:15 am EST – There will only be two matches today after both Premier series went just 2 games. Both Premier and Challenger will play 1 game today.

We ended up going New Jersey in 3 for our final pick of the year. This one was basically a toss up that came down to New Jersey having home court advantage and a raucous 5’s crowd on their side along with the best in the business with ALW.

Columbus actually matched up very well with the 5’s because their women can win and their men are pretty significant favorites by MLP finals standards. In mixed, we really like Klinger/Jansen up against Dizon and Khlif. It’s a good matchup for CJ because Khlif doesn’t present as a big offensive threat and CJ is very tough against women in that cross court battle.

The Dreambreaker is also quite close. We’d give the slightest of edges to the 5’s because their men are both singled threats and ALW is a beast, but if Lea can eat up Dizon that could be the difference maker.

It should be a really good series and we hope it goes 3 games for the theatre of it all. It feels like the fans deserve at least that.

Friday, August 22nd – Semi-Finals

6:50 pm EST – New Jersey def. LA (3-0) – Just like we all thought. 5’s vs. Sliders in the MLP finals. This was a let down of a matchup. Ben Johns losing both men’s games 12-10 out a huge damper on what had the potential to be an incredible series. Instead, the 5’s and ALW carried that momentum into mixed and Ben carried his mopey self into two sad boy mixed performances.

Meghan Dizon deserves major accolades for her efforts. 20 straight wins with ALW. She didn’t have to play mixed today but they absolutely dominated women’s.

Hopefully we get a close finals matchup.

5:00 pm EST – Columbus def. St. Louis (3-2) – Man, oh man, a 2-0 series sweep for Columbus. Maybe we really need to stop doubting them. CJ Klinger was the man of the match in game 2. He was locked in men’s and went on a heater in mixed. His mixed is not always on point but when he gets hot, he is very scary.

St. Louis went back to their standard mixed lineup but their men losing as many matches in a single series as they did all season really put them behind the 8 ball. Full credit to Columbus, who continue to get it done in Dreambreakers. Andrei Daescu playing like a legitimate #1 batting order guy somehow and their women are just very tough for any team to contend with.

If New Jersey wins against LA, we have to favor the Sliders in that matchup. Even if LA wins, picking against the Sliders seems foolhardy right now.

3:00 pm EST – New Jersey def. LA (3-0) – Two sweeps from the underdog teams to start the day. It seems like a real thing that the non-favored team has come out swinging and going for it while the favorite has been tentative. Games to 11 can get away quickly and you wonder if the Mad Drops men pull that one out whether it changes the entire complexion of the match. If they aren’t putting that scoreboard pressure on a player like Dizon, it makes life easy for them. 

How impressive is Anna Leigh Waters? We thought Ben would come out and make an adjustment to have a much closer matchup, but it’s hard to adjust against greatness? ALW plugs that middle so well and changes the game as the female in mixed. The Mad Drops can surely play much better but that was a statement win from New Jersey. 

1:05 pm EST – Columbus def. St. Louis (3-0) – No one had this scoreline coming. The Sliders strength is their gender teams as they women have the firepower to meet the challenge of any team out there and their men are so damn solid. Their women played an incredibly clean match and it just looks like the Sliders as a whole are playing with such freedom and confidence. We thought it was an odd decision for the Shock to switch up the mixed lineups and it comes back to bite them. You lose one gender match and you increase your odds of a Dreambreaker significantly. You lose both gender matches and your odds of losing the match are increased significantly. That’s what leads to the 3-0 scoreline. 

The factor we talked about in our preview that was working against the Shock is the wanting it too badly factor. They just did not play very well, and you wonder how much of that comes from their desire to win so so so badly.   On the other side of the court, Columbus should be riding high after another big win and it’s an interesting scenario where the Shock have to rebound so quickly from a tough loss. Will Columbus play with as much freedom in a closing match to go to the finals?  

10:00am EST – We actually have some news to start the day as the MLP website has the lineups out and both teams are doing stuff.

LA is switching up their Dreambreaker to go with Jade Kawamoto in the 3 spot and Parenteau in the 4 spot. It’s hard to go against what two very smart people on that team are deciding but we will go on record that we don’t like it. CP seems to have a mental block with ALW in singles at times but ALW is more likely to win the matchup with Jade than CP is with Dizon. And the chances of a Dreambreaker getting back to the 4th spot for a third then for CP to win are lower when you have a big discrepancy in that 3rd slot in the batting order. Fun for discussion! We also will get Ben and ALW in mixed.

St. Louis has decided to put their #2 mixed team against Daescu/Todd. Is this St. Louis being confident in their gender teams to get it done or is this a hedge to avoid a loss in regulation? Given the volatility of a Dreambreaker, we a little surprised it won’t be best on best in mixed. One gender loss is going to make things feel very sticky going into mixed. It feels unnecessary to do this when both of their mixed teams are better on paper and Lea/CJ have been struggling together. They may just not be feeling confident in their mixed teams.