Major League Pickleball has named eight teams for its first Nations Cup in Dallas. The United States brings the most immediately recognisable roster, but the tournament’s deeper test is whether squads assembled across different countries and circuits can develop the partnerships needed to challenge it.
Key Takeaways
- The inaugural MLP Nations Cup runs from 30 October to 1 November at Brookhaven Country Club in Dallas.
- Team USA faces Canada, Europe West and Asia Domestic in Group A. Australia, Europe East, Latin America and Asia International make up Group B.
- Andrei Daescu and Nicolas Acevedo, opponents in the recent Arizona Open men’s doubles final, will represent different Group B teams.
- MLP has published the rosters and broad event structure, but has not explained the regional selection criteria or precisely how many teams advance from each group.
Major League Pickleball has announced the groups, captains and six-player rosters for its inaugural Nations Cup. Eight teams will meet at Brookhaven Country Club in Dallas from 30 October to 1 November, playing round-robin matches on Friday and Saturday before the leading sides enter a single-elimination bracket on Sunday.
The United States has the roster most likely to command attention before a ball is struck. Anna Bright, Tyra Black and Kate Fahey are joined by Ben Johns, CJ Klinger and Will Howells under captain Johnny Goldberg. Those names establish an imposing benchmark, although the Nations Cup will be decided by how players function together across a short team event, rather than by adding up their individual records.
That is where the tournament becomes more revealing. Canada, the United States and Australia appear under national names, while five other teams represent larger regions or subdivisions of them. Their players have reached this point through different competitive environments, and some will have more shared history than others. The group stage offers a chance to see whether those differences matter once captains begin choosing combinations and responding to opponents.
Group A puts three approaches alongside Team USA
Canada joins the United States in Group A with Victoria DiMuzio, Blaine Hovenier, Armaan Jiwa Mawji, Layne Sleeth, Ryan Torresin and Angie Walker. Steve Deakin is the captain. Europe West brings together Judit Castillo, Helena Jansen, Will MacKinnon, Theo Platel, Estee Widdershoven and DJ Young, with Chris Cantino in charge. Asia Domestic lists Augie Ge, Milan Rane, Jonathan Truong, Zoey Wang, Jamie Wei and Len Yang under co-captains Geoffrey Nguyen and Jeff Tsao.
Each side poses a different question for the Americans. Canada arrives as a single-country selection. Europe West draws its six players from Spain, Scotland, France and Belgium, while Asia Domestic spans China, India, Vietnam and Chinese Taipei in MLP’s published list. A strong individual performance against Team USA would draw attention, but the more useful measure will be whether either regional roster can produce effective pairings repeatedly, across several team matches.
The contrast is easy to exaggerate before the event. MLP has named the players without explaining how each squad was selected or how much preparation time it will have. A result in Dallas will tell us something about these particular teams under these particular conditions. It will not provide a final ranking of pickleball across four continents.
Group B brings recent rivals into a different contest
Europe East has Andrei Daescu, Mikolaj Biedermann and Arwid Dahlin alongside Lina Padegimaite, Tina Pisnik and Daria Walczak. Daescu’s selection follows his men’s doubles title with Christian Alshon at the Arizona Open, where they survived seven championship points against Nicolas Acevedo and Yuta Funemizu before winning 15-13 in the deciding game. Acevedo will now represent Latin America, placing two players from that final in the same Nations Cup group but on opposing teams. WPM’s Arizona review traced the run that took Acevedo and Funemizu to Championship Sunday.
Latin America also includes Mari Humberg, Rafa Lenhard, Eric Oncins, Alexa Schull and Charlie Trevino. Acevedo and Oncins are Texas Ranchers teammates, giving the squad at least one existing MLP connection. That does not establish which partnerships captain Juan Manuel Benitez will use, but it is a practical advantage worth watching in an event where there may be limited time to build understanding from scratch.
Australia names Sarah Burr, Chris Crouch, Sahra Dennehy, Mitch Hargreaves, Danni-Elle Townsend and George Wall under captain Sange Carter. Asia International brings together Rika Fujiwara, Lingwei Kong, Jimmy Liong, Hien Truong, Jack Wong and Macy Ybanez, with Madeleine Lim as captain. Group B spreads recognisable experience across its four sides, making it harder to identify one obvious centre of strength from the roster sheet alone.
What can the Nations Cup establish?
MLP has already given international invited sides a place in its wider competition. Canada, Europe and Australia joined its mid-season tournament in Grand Rapids, where WPM examined the challenge of turning talented selections into functioning teams. The Nations Cup gives that question a dedicated event, with a group stage that allows each side to be judged across more than one encounter.
There are still details to establish. MLP’s announcement calls the Asian teams “Domestic” and “International”, but does not define those terms for this event. It divides Europe into East and West without setting out the selection criteria, and says the top teams will reach Sunday’s bracket without specifying the number advancing from each group. Those points deserve clarification before the competition is presented as a definitive measure of regional strength. The similarly named domestic and international categories in MLP Asia’s franchise draft describe a separate roster-building process and should not be assumed to govern the Nations Cup.
Dallas will produce the first Nations Cup champion. Beyond the title, the strongest evidence may come from the matches in which a less familiar roster stays organised against established professionals, or an impressive collection of names struggles to find the right combinations. That is the difference this event can begin to show: how far international talent has come, and what it takes to turn that talent into a team.
Further Reading
- The MLP Mid-Season Tournament Is the Moment Team Building Gets Tested
- Arizona Opened the Door. Haworth, Alshon and the Tour’s Disruptors Walked Through It
- MLP Asia’s Draft Reveals the League It Wants to Build
- Official MLP Nations Cup groups and rosters
Chris Beaumont
Founder and Editor-in-ChiefChris Beaumont is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of World Pickleball Magazine. Chris follows the global game closely, reporting on the latest news, developments, stories and tournaments from all five continents. He also hosts the World Pickleball Podcast, interviewing people at…
View All Articles →
