Atlanta rebounds, downs Las Vegas to earn promotion to Premier
The Atlanta Bouncers became the fourth and final Challenger level team to earn a promotion to Premier for the 2025 season.
The squad featuring Jaume Martinez Vich, Todd Fought, Susannah Barr, and Emily Cederquist avenged their most recent loss to the Las Vegas Night Owls to win their quarterfinal series.
As has become customary in this particular matchup, the Bouncers’ Martinez Vich/Fought took the men’s doubles point, while Zoey Wang/Judit Castillo won women’s doubles for the Night Owls.
One key difference from the first two matches of the series, however, came in mixed doubles.
As the higher seed, Atlanta had been able to react to Las Vegas’ mixed doubles pairings in the first two matches. That changed on Saturday, though, because it returned to being determined by coin toss for the deciding match, per MLP rules.
Las Vegas won that coin toss and was able to react to the Bouncers’ mixed doubles pairings. They used the opportunity to change the matchups from Friday’s matches.
Thus, Blaine Hovenier/Judit Castillo took on Martinez Vich/Barr while Rafa Hewett/Zoey Wang faced Fought/Cederquist.
The different look didn’t deter the Bouncers.
Martinez Vich/Barr dispatched Hovenier/Castillo 25-17 to improve to 14-0 on the year together.
“Susannah is very consistent, and she brings a sort of peace that I need on the court,” Martinez Vich said of the tandem’s success. “I’m very chaotic on the court, so I think we do really well as a partnership because she’s calm and it mixes well.”
Fought/Cederquist brought that momentum into the second mixed doubles bout, a highly entertaining encounter that ended with their 25-22 win and Atlanta’s overall 3-1 triumph.
In addition to earning the aforementioned promotion to Premier, the Bouncers also booked their spot in the next and final MLP playoff event, set to run Nov. 22-24 in Orlando.
They will face either the Chicago Slice or SoCal Hard Eights in the Sunshine State, a challenge that Barr is looking forward to taking on.
“Two great teams are waiting for us, but I think we just proved that we’re a force to be reckoned with, and we’re excited to have gotten here,” she said.
With the loss, Las Vegas joins the Frisco Pandas, Bay Area Breakers, Brooklyn Aces, Florida Smash, and California Black Bears as the six remaining Challenger teams going into the 2025.
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