Women Don't Matter Enough at MLP

One of the many beautiful things about pickleball is the way it brings men and women together on equal footing. Mixed doubles is the unifying thread that keeps both genders reliant on each other, and both men and women are equally important, right? At least, that's the theory… but not in MLP.

You're probably thinking: Anna, isn't every doubles match worth one point in Major League Pickleball? How could men matter more? And you're right—when it comes to doubles, every match is worth the same. But the imbalance shows up in the tiebreaker: the Dreambreaker, which is the most electric format in pickleball (and maybe even in all of sports).

Dreambreakers are played when a match is tied 2-2. They're played to 21 using rally scoring, with four unique singles pairings rotating every four points. After the first rotation, the score could be 4-0, 3-1, or 2-2 in favor of either team. Then the next rotation takes the court, and play continues until one team reaches 21 points. The reason men matter more is simple: you want your best players playing first because they'll see the court more often.

The first pairing returns at the 33rd point, when the score could be 16-16, 17-15, 18-14, 19-13, or 20-12. If the Dreambreaker isn't finished during that rotation, the second pairing may return with scores such as 18-18, 19-17, or 20-16 (there are other possibilities depending on the freeze, but I won't get into that here). The third pairing only returns in extremely close Dreambreakers that extend into overtime, like the 5s v Flash one from the weekend.

So, who do you want playing in those first two spots? Your best players by absolute level, and for every single team in MLP, that would be their best male singles players. The women, simply… don’t play as much! And therefore, we are undervalued in this format!

Dreambreakers remain electric, but something is lost now that male v female matchups are so rare. 2021 was the first year of Major League Pickleball (and the Dreambreaker), and boy was it something!!! Even in 2022 male v female matchups were not that uncommon, but as the meta has been solved, and it hardly happens anymore.

The old New Jersey 5s were the main team to create M v F matchups (to Hayden’s chagrin), as they felt Anna Leigh was their second best singles player - and she has never ducked any smoke in her life, ever. But eventually, even the 5s had to abandon this strategy as AL was getting beat, and it simply wasn't worth having her battle to a draw—or worse—in one of the top spots when she could be overwhelmingly favored against a female opponent in the third position (in 2024 she won 73.81% of her points against other women - INSANE!). From a team optimization standpoint, the math became too difficult to ignore.

The point of AL v Tyson where she beats her chest is one of the most commonly reposted pickleball highlights I’ve seen, and don’t get me wrong, it’s epic, but she actually lost 7-5 to Tyson and I was able to beat Hayden 5-3, and my team won the Dreambreaker. There’s a reason the 5s don’t do this anymore.

Men vs Women is the ultimate battle of the sexes, pressure-ridden, David vs Goliath drama that doesn’t really exist in any professional sport. The points are electric!!! In my opinion Major League Pickleball needs to do whatever it can to encourage this to happen as much as possible. Imagine the engagement, the highlights, the impressions!

I’ve mentioned this idea to friends (and even to Samin, the Commissioner of MLP), but I’ve never really shared it publicly, and after this YouTube comment on my last video and a lot of time thinking in my car, I was inspired to finally write on this.

So, how can we discourage constant MMWW Dreambreaker orders? My idea is simple.

One team sets matchups, the other sets position, in that order.

Currently, one team sends out their order of players (1-4), and the other team matches their players up accordingly. So if we were to play the 5s in a Dreambreaker and they had to announce, the matchups would most likely be as follows (what happened in Dallas).

But imagine what this would look like with my idea and the 5s got to set MATCHUPS. If they set the same matchups we saw in Dallas, and the SHOCK got to set ORDER, we would probably choose this order:

Now, this Dreambreaker looks very different, with the Shock being favored in the first position (the most important position), and the 5s would know this. The Shock should win this Dreambreaker more often than not, and it’s highly unlikely Anna Leigh vs Kate would ever come up a third time (their best matchup). So, to avoid this, imagine the 5s did something crazy, and set the following matchups:

I think the Shock would win this Dreambreaker more often than not, and if the 5s set these matchups, they would know this. So imagine they did something crazy, and set the following matchups. The Shock would have some very tough decisions regarding order.

Would the 5s rather this hypothetical Dreambreaker than the one I proposed earlier if they stuck with the normal matchups? I think they would. They could also choose to have it be Kate v Jorja and Will v John, but then we would put those two matchups first and I think we would still be favored.

This might be tough to follow, and I’m going to record a YouTube video that will flesh my idea out more visually. But it’s all really fun to think about!!! And can you imagine what the internet would do with clips of AL and H playing each other in singles?! For that reason alone this should happen in 2027.

Not only would we see more M v F matchups with my idea, we would also see women going first far more often. Right now, teams can kind of hide behind having mediocre women’s singles players more than you can hide behind having mediocre men. Compare the Black Bears with Brooklyn.

Which team would you favor in a Dreambeaker? Because Brooklyn’s men are way stronger (insanely strong, honestly), I’d favor them, even though the Black Bears’ women are elite and heavily favored over Rachel and Jackie. The men just matter more! With my idea, depending on the Home/Away factor, the Bears would be much better able to take advantage of their female advantage by having the women play first, OR if Brooklyn wanted to avoid this and sent out a lot of M v W matchups, things would get very fun very fast. Either way, I think it’s a Win/Win for the league. Dreambreaker strategy would be very different and we would have an unsolved meta! How fun!!!

Generally, I think implementing this system of MATCHUP and then ORDER would be a good change to how Home/Away is approached currently. Right now, one team really has all the power, and it would also perhaps influence some teams to be more, or less, scared of going 2-2. The more strategy, the better, no?!

If one team can set mixed matchups, the other team would set order, my idea would apply to everything. I don’t actually think this would be that tough to implement, and it would still be a two-step process (as it is today). The only difference is that maybe teams would have to announce who is playing singles earlier than they do currently, barring injury, but again, I don’t think that’s a big operational headache.

That’s all for this edition folks! I felt inspired. Let me know your thoughts on this idea, and if you think it would make Dreambreakers more exciting (:

XOXO, your internet bestie, Anna❤️🫦✨