St. Louis Shock Take Over First Place With Dominant Major League Pickleball St. Petersburg Event

Transaction Recap & Player News

Ahead of the weekend, the following transactions were announced:

• Just after the Dallas Flash shockingly finished in last place in their Austin group, they made a major move. They traded Hurricane Tyra Black to Columbus for Danni-Elle Townsend and cash. This move makes a ton of sense for both sides. Townsend really starred in the absence of Columbus’ star player Parris Todd in week 1, but (like Todd) is a left-side dominant player. You can’t have two left-siders and be successful. Meanwhile, Todd played most of 2025 on the PPA tour with Black, with much success (1 gold, 3 silvers, and 8 bronzes in their careers playing together). They also improve greatly in Mixed. Meanwhile, Dallas gets a player they can build around for 3 years who can go back to owning the left side, and they get some cash to work with.
• Early week reports are that Black, who sat out last week’s event recovering from a long-term illness, is practicing with her new team and will play this weekend. Per Jim Kloss tweets, she may sit out some of New Jersey’s early matches but should be ready to go for the highlight match of the weekend on Saturday, when New Jersey faces off against St. Louis in a battle of the two teams most every pundit picked as the two best teams heading into the season.
• Riley Newman, who had to withdraw from Brooklyn’s matches two weeks ago in St. Louis, should be fully fit to power his squad as they try to beat out the LA Mad Drops for the group title.
• Palm Beach’s Dekel Bar was injured early, forcing their bench player and singles specialist into action. However, Goldin fell ill after Thursday’s matches, and Palm Beach was able to add newly signed Casey Diamond for Friday and Saturday’s matches. Diamond is Sofia Sewing’s regular mixed partner on the APP and is a solid player, perhaps even an upgrade over even Bar, and other GMs may be grumbling.

Premier League Group Stage Match Recap

Day 1 Observations

• The event kicked off with the hosts playing above their pay grade and really pressing the veteran Chicago team. They split gender doubles, then Zane and Travis came to faux blows as Chicago ground out a lead by winning Mixed-1. Florida’s Weil and Campbell got a clutch win in Mixed-2 to send the match to the DreamBreaker. Florida’s crew played well, but Chicago’s top singles player Hunter Johnson came through in the end and Chicago eked out a 21-15 DB win to open the weekend.
• Palm Beach’s ladies came out on fire, blasting the Texas women 11-4 to open. Then their veteran men’s team quieted the upstart Oncins/Acevedo team to take a 2-0 lead. Oncins and Sleeth surprised the PB No. 1 mixed team of McGuffin and Sewing, who have been solid this season, to try to pull back the match a bit. This led to an 11-2 drubbing in Mixed 2 by Texas’ veterans Pisnik and Bar for an emphatic 3-1 win.

Day 2 Observations

• Palm Beach blew out the STL Women’s team 11-2, maybe their worst result ever. STL’s men took advantage of an injury to Dekel Bar to cruise to a Men’s win, evening the match heading into mixed. There, McGuffin and Sewing (who have been excellent together all season) worked through a Tyson injury but couldn’t stop the loss to STL’s Patriquin and Bright 11-7. From there STL pulled away as their sub Goldin couldn’t keep pace, and STL wins 3-1.
• LA got their weekend started with a closer-than-they wanted female doubles win, and then LA’s Johns & Freeman had to come back from 1-8 down to beat Garnett & Tama to take a 2-0 lead in this match. Utah got one mixed match back, but the Johns/Kawamoto mixed pair cruised to a win to clinch the match.

Day 3 Observations

• Opening Friday was a banger; Palm Beach’s ladies Sewing and Pisnik had a come-from behind win in ladies doubles over Todd & Black to set the tone. With injuries and illnesses taking out both Bar and Goldin, Palm Beach was able to pick up newly signed Casey Diamond, who just happens to be Sewing’s regular Mixed partner on the APP. Diamond had to slot in directly with Tyson, who is playing through an ankle concern suffered yesterday, so the Royals are banged up across the board. Columbus’ Daescu & Klinger jumped on Diamond/McGuffin fast as they isolated Diamond, eventually winning 11-0 to even the match. McGuffin and Pisnik got a solid come-from-behind win to go up 2-1, then Diamond & Sewing did the same, taking advantage of a slew of errors from Klinger to come back from 1-5 down to an 11-6 game win to seal the huge upset. Palm Beach is now in control of the group. Oh, not for nothing, thanks to all the player subs … PB started each game a point down on top of everything else.
• LA took no mercy on the host Florida team, breezing through gender doubles and the first mixed match to sew up the win. In the last, player-owner Travis Rettenmaier called his own number, and he played inspired, maniacal pickleball to play to the crowd and pull out a come from behind win in the last. LA moves on 3-1 but Rettenmaier wins the crowd.

Day 4 Observations

• In one of the marquee group stage matches of the event, Brooklyn gave LA everything it could handle, losing three games 12-10 and 13-11 twice. However, LA secured the win, which gave them the group and a spot in tomorrow’s final. This was a lot closer than the 4-0 scoreline indicates.
• Well, that was a statement. St Louis absolutely pulverized last year’s champion Sliders, winning two of the games 11-1 and not letting up in mixed 2 even after securing the win. The Shock win 4-0 to secure the group and avenge a loss to Columbus earlier this season.
• Orlando moved past the under-manned Palm Beach Royals, who played on-site sub Stefan Auvergne today instead of McGuffin, who clearly succumed finally to the ankle rolling he took earlier in the event. Jack Sock continues his MLP-renaissance by going 2-0, then the superior Orlando singles squad dismantled the Royals 21-8. Note to conspiracy fans: still no Greyson Goldin, who was “sick” yesterday and continues to be out of the lineup today.

Group Stage Results

At the end of the group stages, here were the standings, which drive the final day’s competition.

• Group A: LA, Brooklyn, Chicago, Utah, Florida
• Group B: STL, Palm Beach, Columbus, Texas, Orlando, Miami

Event Standings Results

For 2026, the final day features the Event Standings matches, where the winner of Group A players the Winner of Group B, the 2nd place teams play for 3rd, the 3rd place teams play for 5th, and so on. Here’s a review of those final matches.

• Event 1st Place match: In a rematch of the St. Louis event final, we saw the same result. The Shock cruised to a 3-0 win, never really leaving any of the matches in doubt, to firmly establish themselves as the class of the league right now They ascend to 1st place in both total points and points/per/event.
• Event 3rd Place match: Palm Beach’s women shocked Rohrabacher & Kawamoto to win the first game 11-3. Brooklyn’s men Alshon and Newman just pulverized McGuffin & Diamond to even the score 11-1. From there, Brooklyn’s superior mixed teams took over and ended the match 3-1 to claim 3rd place.
• Event 5th Place match: Columbus did not mess around, blowing Chicago’s doors off three straight to claim 5th place, but obviously going home disappointed in their result.
• Event 7th Place match: Texas was missing Layne Sleeth, then lost Acevedo to injury, and with bench players Marcela Aguila Ampon (previously known as Marcela Hones) and Matthew Barlow subbing in Utah cruised to a 3-1 win to steal 7th place and the valuable points that come with it.
• 9th & 10th place goes to Orlando and Florida, who earn 1 point a piece. 11th place goes to Miami, who finished last in the group with 6 teams. They receive 0 event standing points.

2026 League Team Standings Update Post-Event

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.

• St. Louis moves to 1st place, in both total points and Points per Event.
• Los Angeles drops to 3rd in the standings, but the top 3 teams of STL, NJ, and LA have now separated themselves from the rest of the pack.
• Palm Beach is now “the best of the rest,” sitting in 6th place outside of the top five title contender teams.
• Orlando drops into 11th, just on the cusp of playoff eligibility, with a poor weekend.

Player Stats Analysis for the Weekend

Here’s a quick look at the players who played best (and worst) this weekend. Too often the per-event stat leaders are just the four players from the winning team, so we’ll look deeper to find impact players that aren’t that obvious.

• Dekel Bar started off the weekend on fire, winning his first 4 matches with a solid 71% point rate before heading out with injury.
• Ben Johns is back: he led his LA team with an 8-1 record and a solid 63% points rate. His only loss? In the finals.
• It was a rough weekend for Texas’ Lea Jansen, who went just 3-9 with a 33% points won clip.

What did we learn this weekend?

What were our top Takeaways from the competition this weekend?

1. MLP continues to play the substitution rules fast and loose. While I get that Palm Beach had major injury issues all weekend, the shenanigans they pulled to be able to play (and win) with Casey Diamond, who signed a UPA deal approximately 45 seconds before he was on the court, seem a bit shady. Lots of reporting that the team had Goldin claim illness so as to get Diamond on the court, which is really unsporting if true.
2. That being said, Palm Beach can really make some noise. They started from scratch this off-season and leave this event in 6th place in the league. They’re the best team that’s not talked about as a title favorite. It did not take Sofia Sewing long after her APP poaching to show that she’s already one of the best women in the sport.
3. Both New Jersey and Los Angeles need to make a trade to upgrade their Men, if they want to win this league and beat St. Louis. After losing in a DreamBreaker to LA in the opening week, they’ve now swept the Mad Drops twice in event finals, not really threatened in either match.
4. St. Pete Athletic may be the best facility in the country. I had heard about it from players and one of its pros (Chrishawn Spackman, who used to play with with us in Richmond before relocating to Florida), but the pro reaction has confirmed it. Bravo to the owners for creating such an amazing space.

Media Pick’ Em Contest Update

We have a slew of influencers and members of the traditional pickleball media participating in a season-long pick’em contest. Here’s the link to track the competition online, and I’ll be tweeting out the pick matrix and updates, so follow me on Twitter if interested.

MLP Media Pick’em Competition Weekly Summary: yours truly somehow won the week, getting 10 of 11 picks right. The Dink’s Alex Weaver takes over the season lead.

Next up on the Pickleball Calendar? According to my Master Pickleball Schedule …

Next up for the MLP next week is New York! Hosted by the Brooklyn Pickleball Team, who have a new mascot needing a name, which somewhat resembles the NYC subway tokens they have since deprecated. The New York event is looking like a New Jersey-Brooklyn final, but there’s a couple frisky teams that could mix things up.

We also have another waiver period on 6/23/26, one that surely will see Casey Diamond picked up, and perhaps some down-roster moves by other teams. We may also continue to see teams making trades, especially ones involving Dallas, who seem to be moving everyone for assets and cash right now.

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.