I will preface this all by saying that I think this playoffs will be absolutely, unbelievably, unfathomably electric. Sure, there have been some “bad” teams in the regular season due to a lack of depth/investment, but that issue has resulted in a lot of talent consolidation and what I think could be the best two weeks of pro pickleball ever. LFG SHOCK!!! ⚡️🏆🎉
Play-in Rounds
The play-in round selections went as expected, the Ranchers chose Miami, leaving Orlando and Utah to play each other. These teams will each play 1 match to determine who advances. Talk about high stakes!
I predict the Ranchers will prevail over Miami, especially with the return of a motivated Christian Alshon; but of course, literally anything can happen in one match.
Christian responded “I’m sure you guys do”, and I so badly wanted to post this screenshot of Wyatt being higher than him in the player standings, but ended up deciding I didn’t need to poke the bear that hard, LOL. I highly doubt he reads my newsletter though, so it’s fine for me to say what I wanted to do here.
You can say I have no dog in me for not posting this initially and, honestly, you’d be right.
The Ranchers are probably the most dangerous of the 4 play-in teams to us as their men are big, athletic, and can get very hot in both men’s and mixed. Christian and Kaitlyn will need to play better as a team in order to make some real playoff noise. Miami’s best shot to force a dream breaker is probably to get a win in men’s doubles and for Milly/Jay to win. If I were them I’d probably put Milly against Eric due to familiarity with his game and go for the W there.
I think this matchup between Orlando and Utah is a true toss-up. Utah is favored in women’s while Orlando is in men’s, and both mixed could go either way. Dreambreakers also feel pretty comparable. I’m excited for a fun one here!
Quarterfinal Round! Where things get SPICY!
The Shock will have first pick of opponent in the QF round, and unless Miami upsets Texas, the most likely choice is the winner of Utah/Orlando. My predictions for QF matches are as follows:
Shock⚡️ v Utah💎/Orlando🍊
Flash⚡️ v Texas👢
5s🤡 v Columbus🍔
Brooklyn🗽 v Mad Drops💚
Securing a 1 or 2 seed was absolutely mission-critical as you can see from these matchups. Of course, any match can go either way, but the best 2/3 format does provide a little extra security for us and Dallas in matches where, in theory, we are quite favored. I would not want to be the 5s or Brooklyn right now.
Flash v Texas should be exciting, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Texas made some noise. They had a lot of chances to push Dallas to a dreambreaker at Dallas MLP. A major point of emphasis for the Flash in the playoffs has to be Augie’s play and hoping he finds the version of himself he was in last year’s playoffs. If he can find and sustain that level, the Flash will be very hard to beat.
5s v Columbus will be interesting for a few reasons, lol. Very curious to see how Parris and Lea will play together against Meghan and AL, especially with the level AL and Meghan have been bringing lately. Will Meghan be loose in the playoffs? As someone who really likes Meghan, I hope so. As someone on another team who really wants to win … crickets🦗. LOL. Just speaking truth. I really hope this series goes dreambreaker a time or two as this would be a great one.
Brooklyn has to be the team most upset about the revamped Mad Drops. This is such a tough draw for them, and despite their higher seed, I would have to favor the Mad Drops here. WD can go either way, but because of Dekel Bar’s rustiness and the fact that him and Riley generally haven’t gelled as well as Brooklyn had hoped for, I have to think that LA should be able to get to 2-2 where they are heavily favored. It’s quite the burden to feel you have to win in regulation. Of course, I’m not saying that Brooklyn can’t win in a dreambreaker, but when the first two rotations for the Drops are Hunter/Ben while Brooklyn has Riley/Dekel… that’s tough. I really hope to see a DB or two here just to see Jackie versus Jade, lol.
So, those are my predictions for San Diego! I will get into semifinal selections for New York City next week! Hope everyone enjoys tuning in! And sorry, but Kate and I WILL be screaming! To close, I’ll plug my past life - the last time I was at Barnes Tennis Center in San Diego was in 2021 when my team (Cal) won the PAC-12 championship over UCLA. Here’s a clip of me winning my match (I went 25-3 my senior year, nbd). Hope to bring back some of that magic this go around!
