12 hours ago
Major League Pickleball Mid-Season Power Rankings
In honor of the New Jersey 5's Clown mascot, I have chosen Comic Sans for the font in this image.
The Major League Pickleball (MLP) season is now halfway done, believe it or not. We've now held 5 of the planned 10 regular season events, with stops in Orlando, Columbus, Austin, Phoenix, and Daytona Beach. While the 16 Premier teams have all played different numbers of matches (ranging between 11 and 15 each), we've had more than enough match history to update our power rankings and to talk about how things may play out the rest of the way.
Along the way, I'll post my pre-season ranking for each team and I'll talk about why they may have changed. Other useful reference data for this story includes the MLP Standings and Eric Tice's detailed Public MLP data. All stats, records, and standings data in this article are courtesy of these links and is as of 6/15/25).
(note: PPM below means Points Per Match. Since there's an unbalanced schedule, the best way to rank teams is by PPM at any given point. Teams get 3 points for a regulation win, 2 for a DreamBreaker win, 1 for a DreamBreaker loss, and 0 for a regulation loss, so the best a team can do is to win every match in regulation for a perfect 3.00 PPM pace).
I had them No. 1 after the draft and they remain No. 1 now. If anything, I think they're actually better than I thought they'd be. They've played 14 and won 14, 12 of them in regulation. The only two teams to even stretch Dallas to the DreamBreaker were an Texas (Dallas won 22-20) and New Jersey (21-11), both at the power-packed Austin event. Why is Dallas even better than expected? Jorja Johnson. She's won 26 of 28 games this year to lead the league, and sits at 73% points won, also leading the league. Of course, it doesn't hurt that the No. 2 ranked player by points won this season so far is also on Dallas, that being Hurricane Tyra Black.
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Can Dallas finish the year undefeated? No, I think they'll drop one to either St Louis or New Jersey along the way on an off-day for someone. But they're well on their way to the regular season title.
The Shock, like the Flash, returned their 2024 team intact and is the current favorite to join Dallas in the eventual MLP championship match. They suffered a shock loss in Daytona Beach to a spirited LA Mad Drops team, the only blemish to their record. They took out New Jersey in the season's first event in a rather 'spirited' match to put themselves firmly ahead of the 5's at the moment. We still have not seen Dallas and St. Louis play this season.
New Jersey has shown some chinks in the armor this year, taking losses to the two teams above them, but then taking a shock loss to mid-table Utah. They've had some ups and downs: New Jersey gave Jorja Johnson her sole Mixed Doubles loss for the season in their Austin matchup, but still ended up losing the DreamBreaker. Anna Leigh Waters went 44-3 in games last season; she's already lost more games this year and we're only halfway through the season. She's still a glittering 13-2 in Mixed and 12-3 in Gender doubles so far, but the step-down from Humberg to Dizon is telling for the 2025 iteration of the 5's. Navratil and Dizon have a losing record in Mixed right now, which puts added pressure on the rest of the team to compete. And they're not unbeatable in DreamBreakers, as both Dallas and Utah have proven. They're still the 3rd team of the big-3 but I don't see them getting past St. Louis this year.
The Mad Drops are the team everyone got wrong for 2025. I thought they were bad enough constructed as to outright miss the playoffs. Then, they suffered from personnel absences in their first two events and had to scramble along just to compete. Three of their four losses came when either Hunter Johnson or Quang Duong was missing, and one could make a credible argument they would have won at least two of them. Finally at full strength in Daytona Beach, they destroyed the competition, becoming the first team to top St. Louis this year and finishing the event 5-0. Jade and Catherine have been unstoppable, going 12-2 in Gender Doubles. They're a nightmare to play in a DreamBreaker: Duong has won 70% of his DreamBreaker points. This team could make some noise in the playoffs even if they can't supplant all three teams above them in the standings by year's end.
Brooklyn actually sits ahead of LA in the standings right now, but has played just 11 matches. They've beaten who they should have, and lost to who they should have. They took both St. Louis and New Jersey to DreamBreaker, but suffer from a roster makeup that's ill-suited for singles play (3 of their 4 starters do not play singles, ever) . They're being led by their two females (Rohrabacher and Jackie Kawamoto) dominating in Gender doubles: they're 9-2 so far this season. Newman has been a monster in mixed, but a liability in DreamBreakers (he's won just 25% of his DB points, as has Rachel). They need to finish off teams before they have to play singles to have a chance.
Columbus has disappointed this season, from where I thought they'd be before they started to play the games. Part of that was out of their hands: they played their entire host event without CJ Klinger. Now, that being said three of their four losses are to Dallas, NJ, and STL, so I'm not sure how much better they could have done. I can see them rebounding in the coming events, but there's a bit of a gap between them and the teams in 4th/5th place.
Texas started the season on fire, with a win over Brooklyn and then becoming the team that came closest to topping Dallas (they lost 3-2, 22-20 in the DreamBreaker in Austin). But they've drifted since then. They took a bad loss to Carolina at Daytona, then lost a 3-2 shootout against LA that was a statement match so far this season. Their off-season acquisition Eric Oncins has been their best player, which is to say that their three established stars (Alshon, Pisnik, and Tuionetoa) have not played up to lofty standards. They sit 6th in the standings but may be hard pressed to push any further.
Orlando is a case-study in team building. They have, individually, two of the best male doubles players out there in Staksrud & Frazier, yet they're 'just' 11-4 together this season. Neither guy is particularly gelling with their mixed partners either (Schneemann & Parker), which has left them mid-table. Their sterling record 10-5 flatters them a bit: it includes an early win over Utah before they gelled, a win over an under-manned LA in the first event, and a 4-0 blowout of undermanned Columbus. Staksrud-led Orlando finished well out of the Playoffs last season, even while he was taking over the No. 1 ranking spot in both Singles and Doubles. Perhaps this is just not a good format for Fed?
For the most part, the teams we thought were good have been good, and the teams we thought were going to be bad have been bad, and all the middle-ground teams have fallen in line. That's why, up until Daytona Beach, the top 8 teams were completely undefeated against the bottom 8 teams. Utah has done the most to break this mold, with three shocking wins in the last two events to launch themselves into playoff position. In Phoenix they beat fellow edge-of-the-playoff teams like Atlanta and Phoenix to start this run, then in Daytona a shocking win over New Jersey (perhaps one of the biggest upsets in MLP history) has put them well into playoff contention. How have they done this? Primarily by winning ugly: their best player by points won percentage is Garnett at just a hair over 50%; the rest are in the 40%. Their No. 2 female Genie Erokhina is just 8-22 in games this season, making it tough on Garnett & Jones to get the wins they need to move forward.
Miami has clearly been the best of the promoted teams, with several wins over Premier teams (NY, Utah, Phoenix) while holding serve against their fellow promoted teams (just one loss against 2024 challenger teams, to Atlanta in a DreamBreaker). They knew what they wanted early, re-acquiring Noe Khlif to re-pair him with Millie Rane. Their No. 2 Female Mya Bui has struggled though, going just 10-20 overall and 4-11 in Mixed, with her veteran partner Devilliers unable to stem the tide. Their goal is to remain in 10th place and make the playoffs,.
Chicago's made from scratch draft day team has not performed as I thought they would, going just 4-10 with a few bad losses to sit right outside of playoff contention. Their big acquisition of James Ignatowich hasn't paid off: he's just 10-18 in games overall, just 4-10 with his buddy Freeman in gender doubles. The team tried to mix things up, recently moving Vivienne David for Vivian Glozman. On the bright side, many of their losses to rivals were in the DreamBreaker, meaning they're not getting blown out when they shouldn't, but they'll look back on losses to SoCal and Phoenix in particular as missed opportunities.
Atlanta has been a bit Jekyll and Hyde so far this season, with a couple of decent wins (Carolina and Miami) and a couple of bad losses (Phoenix and Utah, though that doesn't look so bad now), but mostly has underlined the difference between Premier-quality players and Challenger level players. Their two 'No. 2' players DiMuzio and Fought are near the bottom of the player rankings and are a miserable 1-11 and 1-14 respectively in Mixed matches this year. The team swapped Glozman for David but have not yet tested their new-look lineup. They spent handsomely on DiMuzio in the draft at the expense of other, more veteran talent, and it has not yet paid off. They're a long-shot to get into playoff position.
Much proverbial ink has been spilled on this team so far this year. It's kind of amazing that a team with the best player in the world, and a squad whose Men's doubles team won 35 gold medals together, is just 2-12 for the season. Ben and Collin are just 5-5 as a team; they should be closer to 9-1 frankly. Meanwhile, the mixed performance has been awful, and the energy level/effort level from the Johns brothers has been overtly awful. They've shown spurts of energy here and there, but the clear disgust they have for their ladies mixed partners shows out again and again. The league certainly has a problem here, when one of their marquee stars shows this little competitive fire for all the world to see; for example, how are they selling this to potential betting partners? I don't suspect we'll see much change between now and August and I'd be surprised if this team wins more than a handful more matches.
Phoenix is a mess of their own doing. They managed to turn a decent 2024 team into a god-awful 2025 team. Lest we forget, they finished last year with Daescu, Frazier, Schneemann, and Christian. They managed to turn their best player (Daescu) into absolutely nothing; trading him straight up for Devilliers and then summarily waiving Jay. They spent $100k to acquire Jack Sock, who has more than demonstrated he's unable to carry a doubles team. Sock so far in 2025 is 7-21 overall, just 2-12 in Mixed, and even their three wins on the year were by the skin of their teeth (all three of their wins were in DreamBreakers). They purposely acquired Bouchard (giving away Dizon in the process), who is now 4-22 for the season, winning just 33% of her points and who is dead last amongst non-bench/non-subs in the league. I can't believe I thought they had a chance to compete before the season started (though to be fair that was pre Bouchard trade when I ranked them 8th).
We knew NY was going to be bad, and they've lived up to their advance billing. At least they're trying, giving a ton of reps to their bench players in an attempt to compete. They've also struggled with injury, and have given onsite super sub AJ Koller 12 games out of their schedule. They've somehow got 3 wins; one over the all-sub Carolina team in the Columbus event and the other two against fellow bottom-dwellers NY and SoCal. A reminder: this (like with Phoenix) is self-inflicted; they had a playoff team last year (Sock, Klinger, Kawamoto, Jansen), most of whom they either traded away in exchange for cash before dropping their entire roster to remake out of the 2025 draft. Not a great look for a team owned by one of the MLP board members, especially when they didn't reinvest their gained cash.
SoCal's plan for the year was to get the queen of MLP (Irina Tereschenko) back into action and hope for some luck. It hasn't happened: Tereschenko has struggled with injury and availability, and her sub Jalina Ingram has gone just 2-9 in her place. They've found gold in bench payer Blaine Hovenier, who's carried his mixed partner to a 7-7 record so far and has brought a ton of energy to the squad in a format where that stuff really matters. However, they have a serious roster problem. Judit Castillo and Ryan Fu are winless in mixed (0-14) and are a combined 7-48 for the season. I suspect SoCal may be looking to replace one or both to just try something new. As for the team, I honestly thought they had a chance to go 0-25 this season, but if they get even 2-3 more wins I think it'll be a surprise.
There are several clear 'tiers' of teams so far, and some natural gaps have broken out in the PPM standings. Here they are:
Title Contenders: Dallas, St. Louis
Finals contender: New Jersey
Wouldn't want to face them in the playoff quarters: Brooklyn, LA Mad Drops
Lock for the Playoffs, not much else: Texas, Orlando, Columbus
Stuck in-between good and bad: Utah
Fighting it out for the last Playoff spot: Miami, Chicago, Atlanta
Still trying to figure out what their GM was thinking: NY, Phoenix
Trying not to finish last: Carolina, SoCal
The Challenger teams have played just one event, and at that event the six teams played a pure round robin, so generating power rankings that differ from the current standings wouldn't really add much value. Las Vegas went undefeated and sits top of the table and probably could regularly beat at least three of the Premier teams as constructed. We'll know more after their next event.
What do I expect from the 2nd half of the season? I think my big three predictions are:
1. Dallas does not go undefeated but finishes in 1st place.
2. Utah continues to improve and continues to get upsets.
3. Chicago gels and grabs the final playoff spot
Next up for MLP? This week is the last remaining Waiver period for the league, so we plan on some moves being announced later this week. We'll have a recap of waiver picks, trades, and other transactions with analysis. San Clemente, Event No. 6 on the slate, follows next weekend after this weekend's PPA event at the same venue.
