Brooklyn And Columbus Tighten The Major League Pickleball Playoff Chase In NYC

Major League Pickleball (MLP) presented by DoorDash made the cross-country trip from San Clemente to host its seventh event of the season in New York. This year, they featured this event at a new NYC venue, namely the Sporttime Randalls’ Island tennis facility within a stone’s throw of LaGuardia nestled in the East river between Harlem and Long Island.

Key Links for tracking the event this weekend, which featured livestreams from the two primary courts at the facility on MLP’s YouTube channel and on PickleballTV.com.

• MLP NYC 2025 Event home page
• League Standings and Player Stats
• MLP Schedule along with Rosters for Premier and Challenger teams

Transaction Recap

Ahead of the weekend, the following transactions were announced:

- Carolina gets Etta Tuiotenoa, Texas gets Kaitlyn Christian & cash. So, this is an interesting and impactful move to MLP in general, because Etta Tuiotenoa is clearly a better doubles player than Christian, and Carolina’s mixed teams have been a mess. They’re nearly in last place though, but this move reunites Ben Johns with a favorite mixed partner in Etta (with whom he won several titles back in 2023 while the team was the Seattle Pioneers). Is this the move that spurs Carolina to success? Meanwhile, this move seems to make Texas weaker in doubles, but stronger in DreamBreakers. But, you have to GET to the DreamBreaker to win. It should be interesting to see how Christian gels with her new teammates, who have high expectations of competing with the league’s best.

- Bay Area gets Querrey, Atlanta gets Roddy for its bench. A curiously timed move if anything; Sam Querrey will immediately miss the NYC event for his new Challenger team since he’ll be on two weeks’ of broadcast duties at Wimbledon for the Tennis Channel. So Bay Area rids itself of a capable player to have to immediately use an on-site sub. Weird. As for the value of the move; is Querrey an improvement over Roddy? I don’t think so.

- As the matches unfolded this weekend, we found out about a slew of missing names for major teams, which we’ll mention as they come up. Top players missing at least one day of the competition included Parris Todd, Jay Devilliers, Dekel Bar, and the aforementioned Sam Querrey, who was replaced in Challenger by none other than Collin Johns (who has traded a Premier spot playing alongside his brother with on-site super-sub duties).

Premier League Recap

Day 1 Observations

• Columbus opened up the event shorthanded (missing Parris Todd for the day) but waxed the dead-last Hustlers nonetheless 4-0 to start their campaign.
• Orlando spanked the undermanned Miami team 4-0 (missing Jay Devilliers for paternity reasons). Yutu Funemizu makes his MLP debut but can't stop a sweep

Day 2 Observations

• Funemizu gets his sea legs and helps Miami trounce last place NY Hustlers 4-0 in a rain-shortened schedule that pushed some matches later into the weekend.

Day 3 Observations

• The New-look Carolina team wasted no time making a statement, dominating both Mixed ties to shock the Orlando Squeeze 3-1. Curiously, their only game loss was Ben Johns & Roscoe Bellamy in men's doubles.
• Brooklyn used on-site super sub AJ Koller (replacing Dekel Bar, still injured) to cruise to a 3-1 win over second division Miami.
• Brooklyn swept gender doubles and exposed Orlando's weakest player in a routine 3-1 win in what turned out to be the highest-seeded match of the weekend in Premier.

Day 4 Observations

• Carolina blasted NY in a rain-delayed match played first thing Sunday. The new prop for the Hustlers may be, “will they win a game all weekend?”
• Rohrabacher came up big again for Brooklyn, winning twice and grinding out a 22-20 DB win over Carolina that many called the match of the weekend.
• Columbus finished off an undefeated weekend, crushing Orlando and leaving their star Staksrud with some questions going forward.
• One last indignity for NY, who played its last couple games with sub Eric Forsythe. They lose 4-0 to co-host Brooklyn, finishing off a weekend where they went 0-6 in matches, 1-23 in games.

Challenger League Recap

Day 1 Observations

• Nashville opened up the weekend with a great 3-2 win over DC in one of the marquee matches of Challenger.
• Huge upset as Las Vegas, who many thought would go undefeated this weekend, lose their opener 3-1. Bay Area was greatly helped by sub Collin Johns, who won twice and provided a major improvement to the lineup.

Day 2 Observations

• Las Vegas shook off yesterday’s upset with a straightforward 3-1 win over DC, sweeping Mixed as expected.
• Nashville’s cardiac kids win their third straight DreamBreaker to open the event., beating Bay Area 3-2. Safe to say they have their Singles strategy down by now.
• A mini upset to start Friday as California opens its account this weekend with a surprise win over DC behind Sleeth and Loyd's strong starts.

Day 3 Observations

• Nashville makes it four for four this weekend, starting out Saturday with a solid win over California.
• LV made it harder than it needed to be, having to win the Mixed #2 to force the DB, where they triumphed 22-20 over California

Day 4 Observations

• Nashville finishes off an undefeated weekend with their 4th DreamBreaker win. They beat top-ranked Vegas and officially declare themselves in the title race.
• California ends their weekend with an upset loss to last-place Florida, who edge the Bears 22-20 in the DreamBreaker.

Team Standings Update post Event

Here’s the teams who made moves up or down the Standings in this event.

In Premier

• There was no movement in the top eight, though undefeated weekends from both Columbus and Brooklyn tightened their chase with New Jersey for the #3 spot in the rankings.
• Miami’s 1-4 showing dropped them out of playoff position; they now sit 11th in the table behind Utah.
• The big mover was Carolina, who jumped out of last place with their winning weekend and who now sit 12th. They’re still 6 points behind Utah for the last playoff spot with a game in hand, but hope is not lost.

In Challenger

• Las Vegas lost twice but retains 1st place, ahead of Nashville and their 5-0 weekend.
• The Collin John’s powered Bay Area Breakers made a move up the standings; they now sit 4th and are just four points behind DC.
• Florida remains in last place and is losing ground in points-per-match.

Player Standings/Stats Analysis for the Weekend:

In Premier

• Columbus’ four starters finished 1-2-3-4 in player standings this weekend, with both Daescu and Klinger going 10-0 in games.
• Brooklyn’s two leading ladies Kawamoto and Rohrabacher both went 7-1 for the weekend to power their team to an undefeated weekend as well.
• Etta Tuionetoa’s presence on Carolina was immediately felt; she (and Ben Johns) both went 6-4 this weekend and were in the 54-55% points won range.

In Challenger

• Though we talked about Collin Johns’ performance for Bay Area, it was actually DJ Young who had the best weekend for the Breakers, going 9-1 in games and leading the Challenger division with 59% points won.
• Michelle Esquivel dominated for the Chefs, going 8-2 for the weekend and sweeping gender doubles as Nashville went undefeated.
• Florida’s two ladies finished dead last and lost all five of their gender doubles matches. With the one waiver wire passed, Florida may be stuck with the hand they now have dealt.

What did we learn this weekend?

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

1. Brooklyn and Columbus may be nearly as good as New Jersey, though the 5’s reacquisition of Humberg may change that sentiment soon enough.
2. Ben Johns certainly plays better when he has a mixed partner he enjoys playing with. But is it enough to get them to the playoffs?
3. Las Vegas, who many thought could compete in Premier, suddenly is not invincible and we may have a real race in Challenger.

Matt Klitch Media Pick’ Em Contest Update

MLP Super-Fan Matty Pickles (aka Matt Klitch) runs a season-long Media MLP Pick’em Contest on Twitter, where all the pundits in the sport are participating. I had an excellent weekend, going 7-1 in his competition to remain in the season-long lead. The only missed pick was my picking Las Vegas to go undefeated.

Next up on the Pickleball Calendar? According to my Master Pickleball Schedule, MLP heads to Grand Rapids, Michigan for the 2025 Beer City Open and mid-season knockout tournament. Yours truly will be in Michigan for a couple days covering the event and doing some interviews. If you’re onsite, I’d love to catch up and chat, whether you’re a player, fan, team owner, or league executive. DM me on Twitter or Facebook to sync up.

All 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 22,000 matches in its database across all the pro tours.

Also, a great thanks to The Dink’s Erik Tice, who maintains a fantastic MLP detailed data breakdown and makes it publicly available at this Google XLS link. Tice’s data has proved invaluable this year as MLP does not make match data available at this detailed level at present.