St. Louis Stakes Its Claim To The Major League Pickleball Top Spot With A Win In Grand Rapids

Transaction Recap & Player News

Ahead of the weekend, the following transactions were announced:

• A trade between California and Bay Area just before the event saw James Delgado and Kiora Kunimoto head to the Breakers, with the Black Bears receiving Pablo Tellez, Mya Bui, and cash in return. On the one hand, California turned a waiver claim (Delgado) into a solid MLP veteran (Tellez), while on the other hand Kunimoto’s upside seems to be better than the well-traveled Bui’s at this point in their careers.

Last year, the mid-season tournament was plagued with player absences, to the point where one such absence resulted in a contract termination (well, there was more to the QD situation than that … but it was the nail in the coffin, so to speak). There was definitely a worry for this event, given that only the top 3 teams even get points/prize money, and this event apparently is considered an “optional event” in some player contracts. As the rosters were announced, we saw very little of what we saw last year, with just a couple notable absences.

• No Jack Sock for this event; Orlando has to plug in their bench player Yates Johnson, who had zero 2026 MLP experience prior to this event.
• 75% of Brooklyn’s starting lineup is missing this event: no Alshon, Newman, or Rohrabacher. Newman reportedly had a scooter mishap, while Alshon reportedly is nursing a slight knock picked up in New York. Rachel’s absence is totally understandable; it’s not like she got hit by a scoreboard two weeks ago or anything. But both men’s starters leave Brooklyn playing its singles specialist Haworth and onsite-sub Pesa Toni in a move that will make it quite difficult for them to play to their seed.

At the end of the weekend, the league announced that the Trade Deadline has been extended to 7/20/26, which makes sense since it was set to be on 7/12, the end of the tournament, when everyone was on planes going home.

Competition Recap

Round of 32 Observations:

• None of the four “extra” teams scored an upset over the pros; in fact just one of the teams even got a game win. The College all-star men’s team of Ryan Morneau & Kallan Arledge got a win over Utah’s Shimabukuro & Garnett in a somewhat embarrassing result, but Utah otherwise dominated the rest of the way to advance 3-1.
• The only “upset” by seeds (though perhaps not based on talent and/or form) happened when the Florida Smash squeaked by the new-look Bay Area Breakers, who were starting two new players acquired just this week. Like California, the team may need a bit of time to gel together, and Florida was able to pull out a 21-11 DreamBreaker win.
• The only other close match of the opening round was Atlanta-Phoenix. Atlanta was in charge of this tie, until they were not, after sweeping Gender doubles. Atlanta’s veteran mixed team of Devilliers & Irvine fell to Walczak and Truong, and then Phoenix’ Schull & Chaffin mounted a massive comeback to win Mixed No. 2 13-11 to force a DreamBreaker. There, the veteran squad of experienced singles players on Atlanta’s roster cruised to a 21-14 win to move on in a match that should have been over well earlier than it eventually was.

Round of 16 Observations

• In the always-close No. 8 vs No. 9 seed matchup, Dallas had a working-man-esque win over Las Vegas, cruising in gender and splitting Mixed to move on. Townsend goes undefeated as she continues to impress state-side.
• The only upset of the round was unsurprising. The very undermanned Brooklyn team took on Chicago and saw their one remaining regular starter Jackie Kawamoto put the rest of them on her back and ground out two wins to force a DreamBreaker. There, Chicago’s singles players up and down the roster looked to handle the Brooklyn crew. They bulit up a huge lead, but then two dominant turns by Kawamoto and then Haworth tied up the game at 18-18. This went to 20-20 after an even turn between Zane and Pesa, leaving it to the women. At 22-21, Jamie Wei finished off her dominance of Blatt in the DB to win 23-21.
• The only other close match of the 16s was Atlanta & LA. After sweeping gender doubles, title favorites LA may have thought they’d have a sweep in this match as Ben Johns took the court in Mixed 1. Atlanta had other plans, with the veteran duo of Irvine/Devilliers putting a rare mixed Loss on Johns, then the unsurprising Mixed 2 loss put the teams into a DreamBreaker. There, LA’s singles specialist strategy of using Gabe Joseph and Samantha Parker paid off, as both went 3-1 in crucial mid-match rotations to help LA build a lead it would never relinquish. Atlanta’s Vich staved off multiple match points, but Gabe Joseph won it for LA to move them into the quarters.

Quarter Finals Recap

• Last year’s mid-season tourney winner Dallas has fallen to the No. 8 seed this year and had to play the top seed New Jersey in the quarters. Their women more than held their own, pushing ALW/Jorja to 11-7 before falling, then Dallas’ men’s team ground out a very close 11-9 win to make both Mixed matches count. The Johnson siblings did not face each other once again. ALW and Khlif crushed JW and Buckner in Mixed-1, then Jorja & Howells outlasted Townsend and Ge11-7 for the win to move on.
• Columbus cruised past the over-matched Chicago slice in three to set up a juicy semi-final with the Fives.
• The LA Mad Drops advanced in a match that probably shouldn’t have been this close. Sewing & Pisnik continue their tear together, dominating Parenteau & Kawamoto 11-3, but Johns came to play with Freeman, crushing Bar & McGuffin 11-4 to even the match. Ben got right back on the court after Men’s to get a straight forward mixed win, but then Sewing & Diamond ground out a 13-11 win to send it to the DreamBreaker. There, some surprising turns in the first pass left the match dead even at 8-8. From there, LA took over. Johns took 3 of 4 over his longtime rival Tyson, then Parenteau got the better of Sewing 3-1. LA’s singles specialist Parker blew away Palm Beach’s singles specialist Emmrich to put LA on match point, which was staved off by another 3-1 turn by Tyson but eventually LA’s Joseph took the match.
• After a curious entire day off for the Shock, they opened up Saturday’s action with a 3-0 drubbing of Texas. The same Texas team that put a loss on New Jersey just two weeks ago couldn’t even get started against STL and drops to the loser’s bracket.

Semi Finals Recap

• New Jersey played its game plan to perfect, with Anna Leigh Waters winning both her ties, then NJ stealing Mixed 2 11-8 behind Howells & Jorja Johnson’s play to move into the final.
• St. Louis made it three straight wins over the Mad Drops by taking both gender doubles 12-10, then holding off LA after Ben Johns helped push the match to four before falling. The Mixed loss to Ben Johns & Kawamoto would be the only game that the Shock lost this weekend.

Finals Recap

• Nationally broadcast on Fox, St. Louis looked to avenge an earlier season loss to the Fives and take back 1st place. In gender doubles, STL played keep-away from Waters to the point of frustration and won 11-6, giving Waters & Johnson their first loss this season together. Predictably, Patriquin & Tardio blew through the New Jersey Men 11-3, putting the Fives in a big hole. In mixed 1, Bright & Patriquin ground out a 11-9 mixed win over Waters & Khlif to give that duo just their 3rd loss of the season to complete the sweep and take the title.

Consolation Bracket Highlights and 3rd Place Match

• The first “Pro” team eliminated was not last-place Carolina or another hapless second division team: it was playoff-position Las Vegas. In a pretty huge upset, Phoenix’s young roster beat Las Vegas with relative ease in the opening round of the consolation bracket, with Chaffin/Truong beating Bellamy/Powell 11-1 along the way.
• Texas really was made to work for it by lowly Phoenix in the consolation bracket, who punched well above their weight and may have people taking notice of their young squad. Texas eventually win2 21-18 in the DB to keep their 3rd place hopes alive. Texas also took a DreamBreaker win over Palm Beach in the consolation quarters, but eventually fell to Columbus.
• 3rd Place Match: In the final match of the event, played after the gold medal match, Columbus split gender but swept mixed against the LA Mad Drops to claim the 3rd place title.

2026 League Team Standings Impact

The Mid-Season tournament did count towards the season-ending standings, albeit not nearly as much as a regular event. However, the points earned could be crucial at season’s end to determine the top places.

• 1st Place: St. Louis earns 10 standings points.
• 2nd Place: New Jersey earns 6 standings points.
• 3rd Place: Columbus earns 4 standings points.

Here’s the teams who made notable moves up or down the season Standings in this event. Because of imbalanced schedules, we’ll use Points per Match to determine the “standings” in this analysis (note: wins/losses are not updated in this table for BCO).

• With the 10 bonus points, St. Louis and New Jersey are now exactly tied for 1st place. Each has 93 event points, and thus has the exact same per-event points. Each team has one remaining event: the last event of the season in Orlando, so we’ll get a tie-breaking match for the regular season title there.
• Columbus’ 3rd place points allows them to eke out a jump to 4th place over Brooklyn. Columbus has a relatively easy draw in its final event this coming weekend in San Diego and should make the event final to keep pressure on Brooklyn for 4th place.
• Meanwhile, Brooklyn needs to get healthy fast; they still have two events remaining, and in Orlando they’re likely finishing 2nd in their group thanks to the stacked slate, meaning they’re likely locked into the 5th spot for the season. Either way, 4th and 5th does not entirely matter; both play into the same top-seeded team in a playoff bracket.

What did we learn this weekend?

What were our top three takeaways from the competition this weekend?

1. Well, if you want to beat Anna Leigh Waters … just don’t hit it to her. Duh. There was some quibbling about the tactics St. Louis took in the final on social media and I just had to laugh: have you guys never played tournament pickleball? Here’s the salient strategy in any match: “Which opponent is weaker? Ok that guy? Hit everything to him.”
2. St. Louis is the clear favorite this season now. A couple of hiccups earlier this year to LA and NJ seem well in their past, and the team dominated this event from beginning to end.
3. There are definitely some players on these second division teams who are making their mark this year, and it seems like it’s just a matter of time before we start seeing them make noise on tour.

Media Pick’ Em Contest Update

Because of the knock-out nature of this competition, we did not hold any pick’ em contest this week. We’ll return for the last three weeks of the regular season and then the playoffs.

Next up on the Pickleball Calendar? According to my Master Pickleball Schedule, the MLP has two key dates this week: another waiver wire pickup date on Tuesday 7/14/26 and then the season trade deadline on 7/20/26. Meanwhile, the regular season of the league resumes this week, with 11 of the 20 teams heading right to San Diego for Week 7.

MLP-specific stats mentioned herein come from PickleKey.com, which has done a great job collecting detailed MLP player data for the league and went through an off-season re-design that includes a slew of new ways to slice and dice the data.

My colleague Erik Tice at the Dink (who does double duty as the GM for the California Black Bears) is back to maintaining his Public MLP Data sheet, which has all sorts of awesome data.

Any Tour-level match stats quoted in this article are courtesy of PickleWave. Visit picklewave.com for the premier source of Pro Pickleball data, including match replays, highlights, stats, and discussion. PickleWave has more than 31,000 matches in its database across all the pro tours.