The time to read this is:
What is the MLP?
Before we talk about the issues in the MLP it is best to talk about what it is in the first place. The MLP stands for Major League Pickleball. It’s a team-based pickleball event which boasts about including 100 of the best male and female professionals in the game. So in each match there is a men’s doubles game, a women’s doubles game, and two mixed doubles games. A tied game enters a DreamBreaker game. This is where the teams play singles, swapping players every 4 points until one team gets to 21 or wins by two clear points.
The scoring differs slightly from its normal play. The scoring is ‘point a rally’ where, as the name suggests, every rally scores a point where you served or not. This means they play up to 25 points.
If you have not watched much pro pickleball, and I’ll be honest, I’ve only watched the odd tournament, I think MLP is the way to start. After sending it to a friend of mine, he agreed saying:
I’m totally gonna sucker all of my friends into it!
– H.T
Where can I watch the MLP?
To access the full videos, click on the picture; many matches are streamed on Youtube.
If you’re more of an Instagram person then you can try this clip here! This clip is of two opposing team members in a DreamBreaker. Keen eyed viewers will notice that it’s a man vs a woman which is absolutely possible in this scenario. Its up to the teams who they put against each other!
So what are the issues?
Someone leaked a letter to the MLP around July 30th; it was supposedly from player Collin Johns about the issues in the MLP. (If you want to read it, I’d suggest clicking the first photo and scrolling through it but there is a TL:DR below).
There is a lot of information in this so the TL:DR (Too long, didn’t read) for the issues are:
- MLP forces the best players to play with the worse players.
- The scoring system is bad because it holds back the winning pair allowing the other team to catch up.
- Even though it is a team game, there is not a lot a good player can do if their team is not good.
- The DreamBreaker singles is not good because nobody cares about singles.
- The level of sportsmanship is poor in the MLP.
- The venue choice was poor.
- The balls are not very good.
- They did not test whether the paddles met the regulations well.
So in summary this professional, whoever they are, has a lot of issues with the tournament. Are they justified? Lets have a look.
Do MLP punish the best players?
In this, he (assuming it is Collin Johns) is referring to his brother Ben Johns.
People know Ben Johns as the best pickleball player. In fact, he has won 36 singles titles, 41 doubles titles and 46 mixed doubles titles. Not to mention countless MLP titles. In fact, the next highest male player after Ben Johns 123 titles is his brother Collin with 31.
MLP selects teams through a draft process at the beginning of the season. Each team receives a maximum of 1,000,000 Draft Points, which they use to bid on and acquire players for their four draft slots. So players who have high rankings, like Ben Johns, cost more. So teams have to counter the costs of expensive players by buying players from the lower ranks to make up the rest of the team.
There are two basic tactics for the teams: Buy one or two top players and fill the rest of your team with lower rank and cheaper players, or buy a range of the middle level players so you get a solid team all around.
So on the one hand yes, players like Ben Johns have a harder job because they have to play with a lower player against what may be two decent mid-level players. Nevertheless, the system aims to balance the teams. Nobody forced a team to buy Ben Johns? Likewise, the reason that Ben Johns has won so many tournaments is because he plays his mixed doubles tournaments with the women’s number 1 Anna Leigh Waters. Is it fair that the number 1’s play together every time and win nearly everything? I believe it’s not necessarily negative for top players to face challenges within their teams, which brings me on to another of the related points…
Are there issues in team makeup?
So following on from the previous point, the person argues that Ben cannot do anything about the rest of his team losing. If we carry on talking about Ben, because they do in the letter, Ben plays one men’s doubles match and one mixed match. That leaves two matches he is not on court for. So he cannot win points for them there. But what can he do?
Well, if you go by the official rulebook:
Coaching by teammates and team representatives […] on the side-line is allowed when the ball is not in play […] as long as it does not interfere with continuous play or unfairly disrupt the opposing team.
MLPlay Rules Guide
So Ben can stay at the side of the court, shouting advice to his team between every point that is played. Likewise, during the one minute time out per game, he can give a solid minute of his wisdom to his team to help them beat the others. So Ben in this case is not left completely helpless being able to give continuous advice.
Is the scoring system punishing winning?
As part of the point a rally scoring, when the first team get to 24, they freeze. This means that to get to 25, they have to have served and won the point, similar to normal scoring. This allows the other team to continue getting points every rally until they get to 23 when they also freeze. Then each team needs to win the serve and then win the point until they win by two clear points.
It means at the end of the game that the losing team gathers a few points, perhaps even a lot of points as they catch up to the winning pair meaning the score gets closer than it would’ve been. What’s the positive then? Well, games are more exciting! Would you rather watch a game with a score of 11-5 or 25-23? Would you rather watch a game where the world number 1 and world number 2 comfortably destroy their opponents or the world number 1 and world number 30 get a surprise upset from the world number 14 and 15? I know which one I’d rather watch!
People don’t care about singles?
This is about the DreamBreaker. As a reminder, this is where the team play singles, changing the players around every 4 points until the first team reaches 21. Collin(?) argues that the professionals don’t practice singles and do not care about it. I don’t buy it. Pickleball has gained players like Jack Sock from tennis who have really added challenge to the singles (and the doubles). Ben Johns has won countless singles titles himself and there are many videos online of the professionals getting passionate over the singles games.
Likewise, I’ve already had a variety of people ask about whether there will be a singles session? If you want one vote on the suggestions page.
People want to play it. People want to see it. It makes sense that if you’re even on doubles games that you change it up!
Are there sportsman ship issues?
So this is because of antics that have happened in the recent tournaments like these:
And to be fair there have been other issues with people shouting and wagging fingers and so on. So is it bad sportsmanship? Well, it depends on your point of view. If someone were to run and smash the ball like that at someone in the club, I suspect there would be some serious words said. If someone were to nasty nelson someone… Well, I say if, I did it last Saturday. That’s part of the game. Speaking of sessions, why not join us on our Wednesday or Saturday session!
These are the clips that go viral. These are the clips people watch and share to others! There’s a fine line on the quantity of these kinds of antics that are allowed and you frankly do not see a lot of it.
Issues in the equipment?
This is the one I know the least about (which is why I left it to the end). It is also one of the issues that I think everyone can agree with.
The first complaint is that the lights are not diffused? So I think players lost the ball in the lights, fair point. Could be worse though, they could be dim… or flickering.
The next complaint was that the ball was not very good. They have signed a sponsorship deal to use the Vulcan V Pro Flight, which they also use in the regular tournaments now. The Franklin X-40s was the ball that was used I believe, which is also used at the nationals and open in England? Again, never played with the Vulcan so I don’t know. I’ll take their word for it. Plus I believe they were at high altitude in Salt Lake City so the ball flew more apparently?
Finally, the discussion about the paddles not being tested properly. I think this is because of recent problems with the new range of Joola paddles. Joola are a brand a lot of the pros play with, there was a problem with the amount of grit on the paddle (which created a lot of spin). The paddles were banned by USA pickleball in May. A lot of the pros were still using some form of Joola paddle in the tournament. Did people suspect they were planning with the banned paddles? I don’t know. I could also be completely wrong and this is relating to something else entirely.
So is he right?
Look, I think he has some points. You’d expect the ball to be good and the lighting to not blind you. You’d expect the paddle not to give players extra advantage. If a player is being particularly rude, you’d expect the referees to step in. However, I think its justified that the teams are made as even as possible to make every game entertaining. I think a singles tie break makes the game more interesting after 4 doubles games!
MLP brings in a lot of viewers, it’s how I have been getting people to watch pro pickleball. Its entertaining, there’s a bit of fun drama sometimes and you can get some upsets as well! If I were to run a team tournament, I’d definitely be inspired by the MLP!
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