MLP San Diego held the play-in round and then the quarterfinals for this year’s playoffs. Perfect weather, great crowds, and oh yeah, some unbelievable matches.

Let’s take a look at it all and break it down.

 

 

We began with Texas taking on Miami and Orlando facing Utah in winner take all play-in matches. Miami put up a fight against higher seed Texas. As has been true recently, Jay Devilliers showed he is back and Yuta Funemizu continued to improve. Miami had a 2-1 lead, but lost the last mixed match to send it to the first of many DreamBreakers we would have in San Diego. Texas squeaked out a  21-19 victory. Miami played hard all year, and they deserve a lot of credit for fighting hard to the last point.

 

In the other play-in match, Orlando was favored, but was missing the injured Dylan Frazier. Grayson Goldin stepped up and played well all weekend. Utah, which had played as hard as any team all year, looked a little off. Orlando took it 3-1 to move on.

 

 

Top seed St. Louis got their choice of opponent and took Orlando. In the quarters, the teams switched to best of three matches. St. Louis came out firing and won 3-0. In their next match, Orlando put up more of a fight, winning women’s doubles 11-6. But St. Louis came storming back, winning the next three matches for a 3-1 victory to move on to the semifinals.

 

 

Second seed Dallas was up next, and in an absolute shocker, picked Columbus as their opponent, not Texas. This bizarre choice was odd on many levels. Dallas had lost in the regular season to Columbus, but had not lost to Texas. More importantly, the Columbus roster is clearly more talented than the Texas roster. Could Dallas overcome shooting themselves in the foot by choosing the wrong opponent?

 

The first match went to a DreamBreaker, as Andrei Daescu for Columbus just dominated. He went 2-0 against JW Johnson to lead his team. In the DreamBreaker, Columbus had a nice lead early, but led by Jorja Johnson, Dallas stormed back to win 21-18.

 

 

In the second match, Daescu again went 2-0 against JW Johnson. Dallas was up 2-1 and had Jorja Johnson and JW Johnson up in mixed. They were the #1 mixed team all year, but Daescu and Parris Todd smoked them 11-2 to send it to a second DreamBreaker. The second DreamBreaker was another close one, but Lea Jansen was the hero, going 8-0 against Tyra Black to lead Columbus to a 21-14 victory and setting up a third and deciding match.

 

 

In the deciding match, Columbus won both gender doubles. That meant JW Johnson was now 0-5 against Columbus, a truly astounding result. But Dallas fought back. Augie Ge and Tyra Black won their mixed match easily and the Johnsons took the court needing to win to send it to a third straight DreamBreaker. The Johnsons finally defeated Daescu 11-8 and the stage was set for a super-exciting DreamBreaker. The third and deciding DreamBreaker went down to the wire, close all the way, before a CJ Klinger backhand passing shot caught the line and Columbus had a 21-18 upset victory. Dallas walked away and had to be wondering if they would still be in it if they had simply picked Texas as their opponent.

 

 

 

New Jersey took advantage of the unforced error by Dallas and quickly chose to play Texas. New Jersey won their first match 3-0 after a surprisingly close 12-10 victory in women’s doubles. In the second match, New Jersey jumped out to a 2-0 lead and it looked to be over. But give Texas credit for grit. They defeated Anna Leigh Waters and won both mixed matches to send it to a DreamBreaker. But then Waters had seen enough and she led New Jersey to a fairly easy 21-13 victory.

 

 

 

The last quarterfinal had #4 Brooklyn facing #6 LA. Despite being the lower seed, LA was the favorite and played like it. LA, led by Ben Johns, won the first match 3-0, with Brooklyn only scoring 10 points. In the second match, Brooklyn played better, winning the women’s doubles match, before losing the other three matches. LA took it 3-1 and moved on.

 

 

 

The semifinals will have St. Louis, New Jersey, Columbus, and LA. St. Louis has choice of opponent, but cannot pick New Jersey. As good as Columbus is playing, it would still be a shock if St. Louis does not pick Columbus as their opponent. Ben Johns is locked in and LA has a great DreamBreaker lineup. So, expect St. Louis to choose Columbus as their opponent, leaving New Jersey to play LA.

 

Before the playoff, I picked St. Louis over LA in the finals. I see no reason to change that choice at this point. The Columbus win over Dallas will go down as the best MLP matchup ever to this point. Three matches, three DreamBreakers, you cannot get any closer than that. The semifinals and finals are in New York starting Friday, August 22. The quarterfinals were amazing, but do not be surprised if the semifinals and finals are even better. This all may well come down to a third match DreamBreaker to decide the champion. Wouldn’t that be something to see? Watch it all on Pickleballtv.

 

Follow me on X @pickleball_jim.