DROPPED - No One Wants Me🥺

In the span of a mere 24 hours - I was a point away from being the queen of Cape Coral (RIP💔), I had a comedically tragic travel experience getting from Florida to… Florida, and I got dropped from my MLP Team, the St. Louis Shock. It’s been so overwhelming and there’s so much we have to cover, so let’s get right on into it (:

PPA Cape Coral was such a fun tournament for me. My content creator brain was all the way ON (I often joke that I have three brains - my pickleball brain, my content brain, and my Brighter Pickleball brain), and I was doing everything I could to take advantage of it being Valentine’s Day❤️ and my new muscles💪🏽 that I didn’t even know I had LOL. If you want a deeper look at the constant chaos that was my week in Cape Coral - check out my vlog (:

I played amazing in Cape Coral - I’m always nervous when JOOLA gives me a new paddle to use as I feel pressure to perform with it, but perform I did. The PRO V is an AMAZING paddle, and I’m sure those of you that are looking for the next new shiny thing to take your game to the next level (and to get hotter, obviously) will love it💛💛💛.

Things are really clicking for me on the right side in particular. I’m getting way more comfortable generating aerial offense which is paying huge dividends in both women’s and mixed.

My high level of play led to me having not lost a game up until Championship Sunday, where Hayden and I were ONE POINT AWAY from doing the undoable and beating Ben and AL. I missed a drop that will haunt me until we beat them on our only match point. I discussed with my bootcampers this week the concept of wanting something too much, which I’ve discussed before in this newsletter (remember my sand analogy?). I do think I might want this win too much, and I will learn from it and handle the nerves better in the future. There’s no point more difficult than the last one, which you all know😭

I wouldn’t do anything differently, and if we were back in that moment I would not scream at Hayden to take that shot. I’m a competitor, I’m a dawg, I’m her, and I want the big shots on my paddle no matter who my partner is. I won’t make that mistake again. I might miss high, but it won’t be in the net!

AL and I bounced back well with a quick turnaround and won women’s against the Kawamotos (did anyone hear me call them the "munchkin menaces” LOL) after a contested Game 1. We were both tired/fatigued after our mixed match and I’m proud of us for gutting it out, I have no idea how AL also plays singles on a lot of these days. I joked to some other pros that I deliberately lost mixed to give us a better chance in women’s as I am a lot more accustomed to losing than she is. Hopefully one day we can find out what happens if I win mixed😂

If you didn’t know, I pretty openly speculated and even argued that dropping me made the most sense for my MLP team, the St Louis Shock (if you want to read my newsletter piece on the topic, here it is!). Here are all my drop predictions in video form, if you want to see how I did compared to what actually happened.

I predicted I would be dropped, and I was right. I was a bit bummed to find out the news, but I understood. It’s my understanding that the Shock do intend to buy me back, but there are other teams that will probably make that more difficult than they might have hoped.

The most notable players in the mix are the New Jersey 5s (who I correctly predicted would drop BOTH Meghan and Mari - such a Klossian sentence LOL), the Dallas Flash, the Columbus Sliders, and the Texas Ranchers. Other teams could totally enter the mix, but those are all teams in the contender category that need a woman. The biggest surprise drop besides myself was Jorja Johnson, I would have thought she was definitely safe and that the Flash would drop either Tyra or JW.

I will write more in the future about what I expect will happen - but Zane said it best in his breakdown. To an extent the New Jersey 5s🤡 “have MLP by the balls”. They nearly won it all with Meghan, and if they were to acquire either Jorja or I, it would be a big problem for the rest of the league simply from a mixed perspective - Meghan and AL were super dominant as a women’s team, but having Jorja or I, who are inarguably the second and third best mixed players in some order, would be a BIG problem for everyone who isn’t a member of clown town.

I would LOVE to end up back on the Shock, but of course I have no say in the matter and am going to embrace the opportunity to let go of control, take advantage of being talked about a lot, and milk all of this for as much content as I can.

On a final note here, I have to point out that I think a few teams fumbled hard. Teams that, in theory, have money and are in the middle pack missed on a big opportunity to swing themselves firmly into the contender category by not having a female spot open in the upcoming free agency draft on 2/27. I wonder if Orlando in particular is kicking themselves - I am a Squeeze OG after all.

That’s all for this edition, I am writing this as I sit on the ground in the player’s lounge about to get ready for my match. The back-to-backs with full on progressive draws really are brutal, even without sleeping in your car, unshowered, in an airport parking lot LOL. I will see everyone on Pickleball TV and will be covering more MLP speculation in the coming weeks before the draft!

Dink big, dream bigger! your internet bestie, Anna XOXO ❤️