Next up for MLP is Dallas, beginning Thursday. It will be hard to beat the excitement of MLP St. Louis, but considering the teams playing in Dallas, it may just happen. The big MLP news off the court was all about trades. New Jersey struck first, trading for Noe Khlif. But, LA topped that trade by acquiring Ben Johns from Carolina. St. Louis and Dallas have been the best teams all year, but they now have clear challengers in New Jersey and LA. And guess what: all four teams are in action at MLP Dallas.

The timing could not be better. In addition to those top four teams, MLP Dallas will also include Texas (fighting for playoff position), and New York, Carolina, SoCal, and Phoenix (all fighting to be spoilers to the top teams). MLP Dallas will last four days, so let’s go over the best matches each day.

 

 

 

MLP Dallas will have four matches on opening day and it begins with a bang: the new-look LA Mad Drops play the opening match against New York. LA will win the match easily, but all eyes will be on Ben Johns as he takes the court with a team capable of winning it all. LA has been carried all year by Catherine Parenteau and Jade Kawamoto, but now they have a top men’s doubles player too.

 

Perhaps most interesting will be to see what strategy teams employ against Johns/Hunter Johnson in men’s doubles. Johns is used to playing with a steady, consistent, right side oriented player. Johnson plays more of a drive and speedup style. Johnson will play the right side with Johns, and Johnson can expect to see a lot of balls. Johnson should be practicing his crosscourt forehand dinks and counters as he is going to need both as never before. I expect teams to return serve to Johns to avoid Johnson drives, leading to Johns crashing. After that, just about every ball should be headed Johnson’s way, with a lot of speedups directed at him.

 

 

 

Friday’s match of the day is definitely St. Louis against LA. St. Louis is on its way to capturing the top seed. The Shock will get easy points against most of the teams in the MLP Dallas field, but this matchup against LA will have a Super Bowl kind of feel. At MLP St. Louis, the St. Louis vs. Dallas match was intense; I expect this match against LA to equal that intensity. Brooklyn and Columbus are very good teams, but at this point, it will be an upset if the final four are not St. Louis, Dallas, New Jersey, and LA. Any of those four teams could easily emerge as the champion. Therefore, this St. Louis vs. LA match may be a championship preview. St. Louis will have the edge in the mixed match involving LA’s #2 team. The other three matches are coin flips. Expect a DreamBreaker in this one.

 

 

 

Saturday gives us another matchup between the Big Four teams, with LA taking on New Jersey. Both teams have a new look, but the fans will likely want to see a mixed match with Ben Johns on one side and Anna Leigh Waters on the other side. However, New Jersey is listed as the home team on this one and I expect them to set the lineups so Waters does not play Johns. In any event, this match has huge playoff implications. New Jersey is highly likely to finish third in the regular season, and LA sixth. This would normally lead them to play each other in the quarterfinals. But, I predict that New Jersey, which can pick its opponent from either the five seed (Columbus) or the sixth seed, will choose to avoid LA by picking Columbus as its opponent. The match in Dallas provides New Jersey with an opportunity to see how they match up against LA, and the result may change their playoff strategy.

 

Another good match is the last one on Saturday as Dallas will take on Texas. Texas is probably locked into the #7 seed, but if at all possible, they would prefer to work up to the #6 seed and avoid a playoff play-in match. Texas will get some good points against the bottom teams in Dallas, but can they also pull out some points against the top teams?

 

 

The last day of MLP Dallas is the one with the best collection of matches. Texas will play New Jersey in a match important to both teams. The Christian Alshon/Eric Oncins duo has arguably been the best MLP men’s doubles team this year. They will be a good test for the new pairing for New Jersey of Will Howells and Noe Khlif.

 

LA will be in the spotlight again, this time taking on Dallas. With matches against St. Louis, Dallas, and New Jersey (the top three teams), we will certainly know by the end of MLP Dallas how good the new look LA team really is, and if they are the legitimate threat to win it all that they appear to be.

 

The last match of Sunday and of MLP Dallas gives us St. Louis taking on New Jersey. Before the latest trades, it was pretty clear that St. Louis had taken a step ahead of New Jersey. Is the addition of Noe Khlif enough to bring New Jersey up to St. Louis’ level? That is the question this match will answer.

 

 

MLP Dallas looks to be a wild one where any of four teams could emerge with the most points. Obviously, the head-to-head matches involving St. Louis, Dallas, New Jersey, and LA will go a long way to determine who nets the most points from MLP Dallas. But, at the same time, when those four teams play Texas and the non-playoff teams, it will be important for the top teams to net the full three points from each match. Even winning in a DreamBreaker means the loss of a single team point. With the standings so close, every point may matter.

 

I expect quite a few of the matches to go to DreamBreakers. The top four teams and Texas are close enough in talent that winning 3-1 (much less 4-0) is difficult. There will be some blowouts when the top teams play New York and Carolina, but when the top teams meet, there will be a lot of tough, exciting, close matches.

 

 

St. Louis - 16

Dallas - 15

New Jersey - 14

Los Angeles - 14

Texas - 11

SoCal - 6

Phoenix - 5

New York - 0

Carolina - 0

 

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