Dallas And Las Vegas Win Titles at The Major League Pickleball Beer City Open Mid-Season Tournament

It was a banner weekend for Major League Pickleball (MLP), with all twenty-two (22) MLP teams and nearly every top player in the sport in Michigan for the 2025 Edward Jones MLP Mid-Season tournament. For the second year in a row, the league took a break from its season-long event structure and held a winner-take-all tournament that harkens back to its roots as a league.

The fans were not disappointed, as they saw some of the best matches and most exciting competition the league has ever seen, at one of the best venues in the land. We’ll cover Grand Rapids Pickleball and the accompanying annual Beer City Open later this week, as I was onsite this weekend to see firsthand the festivities. For now, let’s recap the weekend.

Key Links for tracking the event this weekend, which featured livestreams from the two primary courts at the facility on MLP’s YouTube channel and on PickleballTV.com.

Player Replacements for the Event

The grind of the nearly every week nature of the sport right now is starting to take its toll, as a slew of players were absent from this event, some with lingering injuries and others with pre-arranged conflicts. Usually just one or two of the designated “on-site subs” are used per weekend, but Grand Rapids saw a host of them.

– Brooklyn: AJ Koller subbed for the still-injured Dekel Bar, in his near-season long “super-sub” role that I interviewed him about for a forthcoming special interest story.

– Atlanta: Collin Johns stepped in Sunday for Eric Roddy, who had to leave for a family emergency. Roddy was already covering for the absent Vich, so Atlanta was down two players here by the end of the event.

– Carolina was without recent acquisition Etta Tuiotenoa, which put bench player Liz Trulock into action all weekend.

– LA Mad Drops: Rafa Hewett subbed in for the missing Quang Duong, who we learned mid-event that his absence wasn’t necessarily “excused” and had his contract terminated.

– Miami used one of its bench players Yuta Funemizu all weekend to cover for Jay Devilliers, at home celebrating the birth of his latest child.

– Phoenix used Pesa Toni all weekend in the place of Jack Sock, who was in Newport Beach to play in an ATP qualifier with Billionaire Bill Ackman instead. Given the fallout from Duong’s unexcused absence, I wonder if there will be some reaction here from the league from this heavily criticized decision by Sock, especially when it comes at the expense of this high-profile event.

– Phoenix was also without Genie Bouchard all weekend, playing Alex Walker alongside Jesse Irvine instead in a team chemistry situation that may still be broiling from the previous event.

– Utah used Yates Johnson to replace the injured Tyler Loong, who had hand surgery earlier this week stemming from a Bike accident.

– Bay Area also used Collin Johns earlier in the tourney to cover for the recently acquired Sam Querrey, who was in London finishing up TV broadcast duties for Wimbledon. Did Bay Area know that Querrey was going to be unavailable when they acquired him just a couple weeks ago?

– Rafa also helped out DC pickleball a bit to cover for Auvergne’s brief absence.

Some of these absences played a big role in the competition, especially with the Mad Drops as we’ll discuss.

Premier Competition Recap

I’ll cover just the highlights of the early rounds for brevity.

Round of 16s

• No. 1 seed and favorite Dallas Flash kicked off Thursday with a brutal beatdown of the league’s weakest team, beating the New York Hustlers 2,3,0 to move on.
• With Tuiotenoa missing, Carolina’s hopes of scoring the upset withered fast in a 3-1 loss to Columbus.
• In the closest match of the round, and the only upset by seed, Miami’s Noe Khlif led his team to victory, 21-18 in the breaker over the powerful singles play of LA Mad Drops.
• High-energy Blaine Hovenier led an upset in Men’s Doubles, but St. Louis was just too strong, winning the match 3-1 over SoCal Hard Eights.

Quarters

• Miami’s Khlif and Funemizu got a point on the board, but New Jersey controlled the match to move on 3-1 into a highly anticipated semi-final match.
• Columbus edged out Brooklyn in two close, exciting gender matches, then blew away the first Mixed match 11-1 to sweep into the semis.

Semis

• Dallas stuck to its guns and came back after dropping the first game to cruise into the finals with a 3-1 win over the Columbus Sliders.
• The New Jersey 5’s switched up and played Humberg over Dizon but it didn’t pay off, losing both her ties in a 3-1 win for the Shock to set up a dream final.

Finals

• Dallas wins the title after splitting gender doubles with a well-played 12-10 Mixed No. 2 by Auggie Ge and Hurricane Tyra Black, who held firm and won the endgame.

Consolation Bracket highlights and 3rd Place Match

• The last place Hustlers earned another day’s play with an upset of under-manned Utah 22-20 in the DreamBreaker before falling to Miami.
• Carolina’s Johns & Roscoe blanked their opponents in Men’s, but Atlanta easily won both Mixed ties to move on and send Ben Johns home winless. This is a shock if only because a Johns-led team has won multiple titles in the past.
• In the Consolation semis, Texas made a bit of a statement, proving they’re a bit better than their record with a sweep of Columbus 3-0.
• In the Consolation final, doubling as the 3rd place match, the disappointed New Jersey 5’s secured 3rd place this weekend with Dizon back in the lineup and grinding out two 12-10 gender wins to beat Texas 3-1.

Challenger Competition Recap

Quarters

• Both College teams fell 3-0 to the professional teams, with little fanfare.
• Despite retaining Collin Johns for the mid-season tourney, he went 0-2 and Bay Area dropped to the loser’s bracket in a 3-2 loss to rival California.

Semis

• Las Vegas had a massive comeback after losing both gender ties, sweeping mixed then taking the DreamBreaker 21-14 to move onto the final over California.
• Nashville did their part over the short-handed DC team, winning both mixed to take the tie and setup a No. 1 vs No.2 final

Finals and 3rd Place

• In one of the best MLP matches played in recent memory, the two top Challenger teams played a back and forth nail-biter to get to the DreamBreaker on the packed championship court. In the final game, Las Vegas recovered from being down 1-7 to edge Nashville 22-20 for the title.
• In the 3rd place match, DC came back from a first game loss to cruise to the Bronze medal with a 3-1 win over California.

Player Stats Analysis for the Weekend

In Premier:

• Jade Kawamoto was the sole player to go undefeated this weekend, winning all six of her matches for the LA Mad Drops.
• Not for the first time, Jorja Johnson was the points-won leader at an MLP event, winning an astounding 74.14% of the points she played this weekend.
• Four other players broached the 60% points won mark: Anna Leigh Waters, Hurricane Tyra Black, JW Johnson, and Will Howells.

In Challenger:

• Despite falling in the final, Nashville players comprised the top 3 slots in points won percentage for the weekend. Scarpa, Brown, and Ewa Radzikowska finished 1-2-3 for the weekend.
• Others above the 60% points won threshold included Auvergne and Wang.

General Observations from the weekend

• Dallas won 3-1, though the match was probably a bit closer in aggregate, and remains the class of the league. They remain undefeated for the season and have only been extended to a DreamBreaker twice (against Texas and New Jersey). They will get another test against St. Louis this coming weekend, otherwise are now a favorite to go undefeated.
• New Jersey looks like they’re going to be stuck in 3rd place with their current set of players, and there’s not a lot they can do without making some hard decisions.
• Nashville and Las Vegas is a great rivalry; too bad they don’t get an opportunity to play premier teams and highlight just how good these players are.
• We’ll cover Grand Rapids Pickleball and the accompanying annual Beer City Open later this week, as I was onsite this weekend to see firsthand the festivities.

Matt Klitch Media Pick’ Em Contest Update

MLP Super-Fan Matty Pickles (aka Matt Klitch) runs a season-long Media MLP Pick’em Contest on Twitter, where all the pundits in the sport are participating. I finished the weekend going 14-2 (or alternatively, earning 14 of 16 available “points” in the competition) to remain atop the season standings for the year. The two picks I missed were my 1st round upset pick in Premier and the Challenger champion (I thought Nashville would win).

Next up on the Pickleball Calendar? According to my Master Pickleball Schedule, the MLP trade deadline is technically today 7/14/25, and I wonder if we’ll see some moves given some of the news we broke over the weekend. Then, MLP is right back in action next weekend in St. Louis for an event that Shock owner Ross Chaifetz promises will be “the best all year.”

As noted above, I’ve got another piece coming this week that talks more about the event and my experiences onsite later this week.

Thanks to Eric Tice’s Public MLP data with per-event stats breakdown for his season-long work to track such information.