MLP 2025 Season Preview

Major League Pickleball Premier division is back for the 2025 season! Kicking off April 24-17 in beautiful Orlando Squeeze country, where we left off last year, this should be the best season yet.

2024 Results: The Dallas Flash won the 2024 title in Orlando 2-1 in a truly epic match-up with the New Jersey 5s. The teams split the first two matches, both going to dreambreakers, with ALW and JW winning all their matches. Match 3 was a real shakeup, the Fives win mens, but the Flash win womens convincingly, and then after the Johnsons grab a 3rd win over Humberg/Navratil, Tyra Black and Augie Ge pulled a huge upset over Anna Leigh and Will Howells to prevent a dreambreaker and take the title.

In the semifinals, New Jersey(1) beat the Texas Ranchers(5), and Dallas(3) beat the St. Louis Shock(2) both in 2 matches.

Changes for 2025!

The top four teams from the Challenger Division were promoted to Premier (Miami, Atlanta, SoCal, Chicago)
All doubles games will be played in side-out scoring style and will be one game to 11. Dreambreakers will still be rally scoring to 21.
2 roster spots were added to each Premier team and an offseason draft was held in March to fill out each team. If I understand correctly, the lineup for each team cannot be changed mid-match, and possibly not even between matches in a single day? There is also a strange rule where it seems that if a team wants to replace someone in their starting 4 and is willing to drop them, they could take anyone not in the starting 4 from any Premier team. I have to say this rule seems extremely chaotic, and I don’t know if it’s going to work. Of course they want to have the best players possible on court, but I assume a lot of these teams won’t even really consider using bench players unless they have a scheduling or injury issue. I guess I still don’t fully understand the details of how it will work. I have heard that your main 4 players are protected, and that you’d have to drop one of them to pick up a bench player from another team. But lets say Big H has a scheduling conflict for Orlando, if the Shock play Eric Lange in his place, does that move Patriquin down to the bench where he could be immediately grabbed by say the Hustlers dropping Donald Young? Or can you keep whatever four players you want protected regardless of who plays? I was starting to wonder if it even mattered what team bench players were technically on, but maybe that’s it…you can play your own bench players any time you want without changing your protected 4, but to poach a player from another bench, you have to unprotect one of your main 4.

I’m going to give you my predictions for the final standings of the 2025 season with team preveiws and see how I do. Look out for my doubles teams power rankings and MLP Orlando preview as well.

1

St Louis Shock

Hayden Patriquin

DUPR: 6.95

Gabriel Tardio

DUPR: 6.89

Anna Bright

DUPR: 6.38

Kate Fahey

DUPR: 5.89

Shocked that they didn't win it all last year, St. Louis kept their roster intact. Sure they were upset by the Texas Ranchers in the semifinals, but all four starters have gotten better in the last 6 months. Bright is the second best female in the world, Tardio and Patriquin are teenagers, but veterans and we see them on PPA championship Sundays often. Fahey is in contention for being the fastest rising star, hoping to challenge ALW in singles and her doubles game is improving nicely. Fahey/Tardio mixed was their biggest weak spot last year and I expect them to be better in 2025, with at least a winning record.

2

Dallas Flash

JW Johnson

DUPR: 7.17

Augustus Ge

DUPR: 6.55

Jorja Johnson

DUPR: 6.29

Tyra Black

DUPR: 6.17

Dallas is the only other team to be returning the same starters as last year, and who could blame them for wanting to keep their title winning squad together. Even though he hasn't had great results since being a key piece in the Flash 2024 MLP title, the team paid to get him back and keep the momentum going. The Johnsons just beat the best mixed team in the world, and the Flash ladies just beat the best women's team in the world. Things couldn't be looking much better for the Dallas if Augie Ge can be close to what he was last season. I guess what I'm saying is that Jorja freaking Johnson is pretty likely to at least get this team to a dreambreaker on her own in most matches. I'm predicting 80+% of the time Jorja will go 2-0, she's a monster.

3

New Jersey Fives

Anna Leigh Waters

DUPR: 6.67

Will Howells

DUPR: 6.65

Zane Navratil

DUPR: 6.56

Meghan Dizon

DUPR: 5.85

My heart is telling me the Fives could take a decent size step back this year, and predicting a 6th place finish wouldn't be out of line. The gap is closing fast on Anna Leigh, right? Well, my brain knows the answer is no. Even if it's closing (because it just HAS to), ALW is still extremely dominant. Look through these teams (sorted by DUPR), and you'll see AL is the only female with the top DUPR on her team, and there aren't any in that second slot either. She has just dropped Catherine as a PPA partner as MLP starts, and I expect she will want to show why she can be so selective when it comes to partners. Howells is apparently much improved, though we haven't seen him on the PPA at all, and captain Zane will bring the energy like he does. Meghan Dizon is the unknown here, we all assume she can win with ALW because likely anyone can, but she and Zane will struggle against most of the top half mixed teams. They are probably going to have to win dreambreakers.

4

Texas Ranchers

Christian Alshon

DUPR: 7.12

Eric Oncins

DUPR: 6.59

Tina Pisnik

DUPR: 6.08

Etta Tuionetoa

DUPR: 6.07

The Ranchers were the best team in MLP for a spell last year. Etta and Tina are extremely solid in women's and in mixed, and it's possible that Alshon is the best player out there in April 2025. Can young star Eric Oncins pull his weight? He's had a couple results on the PPA recently that should make Rancher fans optimistic. Oncins does seem fiery though, and while not the most cerebral chirper out there, Alshon tends to draw out the trash talking with his roars. That will be fun.

5

Brooklyn Pickleball Team

Riley Newman

DUPR: 6.81

Dekel Bar

DUPR: 6.77

Jackie Kawamoto

DUPR: 6.11

Rachel Rohrabacher

DUPR: 6.08

Brooklyn may not have a top 5 male or female on their team but amazingly, all 4 players are knocking on that door. The biggest question mark for one of the most solid rosters out there is whether or not the game has passed Riley Newman by. If he can still hang with the new wave of young players, Brooklyn should be a title contender. I expect to see Newman play with Jackie and Big D to play with good friend Rohrabacher. I think this team will have a chip on it's shoulder, and honestly I'm really pulling for them.

6

Columbus Sliders

Andrei Daescu

DUPR: 7.1

CJ Klinger

DUPR: 6.72

Parris Todd

DUPR: 6.06

Lea Jansen

DUPR: 5.96

Columbus is the first brand new team on the list and they look pretty good. Daescu is arguably the best player in MLP right now, and Klinger and Todd are on a very positive trajectory. Jansen is a veteran, but I'm worried she will be a weak enough link to keep Columbus out of the very top tier. If I had to guess, I think we'll see the veterans Daescu and Jansen play mixed together, and if they can find some good chemistry, Columbus could easily outperform this projection.

7

Chicago Slice

James Ignatowich

DUPR: 6.74

Max Freeman

DUPR: 6.22

Callie Smith

DUPR: 5.92

Vivienne David

DUPR: 5.87

This is my team! And I'm probably overexcited having them this high, especially because I assume this Slice is deep-dish? Gross. Big Papa Jimmy is back, the monkey's off his back, you heard it here first. He took a lot of heat in 2024 for a dropoff in results, but he was injured and heartbroken (probably). I'm also high on Max Freeman's potential, though I'm worried that we've seen Callie Jo Smith's best pickleball, and not recently. I think the pressure won't be on this team and I hope they have fun and perform really well.

8

Orlando Squeeze

Federico Staksrud

DUPR: 6.98

Dylan Frazier

DUPR: 6.92

Lacy Schneeman

DUPR: 5.93

Samantha Parker

DUPR: 5.44

The host team for the first event has an extremely strong male team. Both Fed and Dylan were ranked #1 in mens doubles at some point in 2024, so they will be good, but now we are getting to teams that have at least one very unproven starter. Lacy is awesome and should do well in mixed, but can she find wins with Sam Parker? This looks like an amazing dreambreaker team, so if they can win most of those, they could be in the mix.

9

Carolina Hogs

Ben Johns

DUPR: 7.41

Collin Johns

DUPR: 6.49

Katlyn Christian

DUPR: 5.75

Liz Truluck

DUPR: 5.57

Just how good is Ben Johns? Because again, the Hogs owners didn't give him much to work with. I think we will see the Johns brothers have more fun this year, though the bar for that could not be lower. Ben's real superpower here is that he will win a lot of mixed matches no matter who he plays with, and that's what will keep the Hogs in the middle of the pack. Outside of Ben, I don't think Carolina has any players that could make the lineup at all on the my top 6 teams.

10

Atlanta Bouncers

Jaume Martinez Vich

DUPR: 6.72

Todd Fought

DUPR: 6.29

Vivian Glozman

DUPR: 5.92

Victoria DiMuzio

DUPR: 5.9

The Bouncers are a fun team and have a wide range of where they could end the season. I am super high on Glozdog, and the rest of the world is high on DiMuzio, if those two catch fire, this will be a very dangerous team as Jaume and Todd Fought should be pretty reliable even if not top tier on the mens side.

11

Utah Black Diamonds

Connor Garnett

DUPR: 6.74

Tyler Loong

DUPR: 6.52

Allyce Jones

DUPR: 5.83

Genie Erokhina

DUPR: 5.72

Am I short on Black Diamond energy here? I certainly hope so as I really like this team. Garnett and Loong play together in the PPA and you can count on a quarterfinal finish pretty much every time. But the field is so tough at the top, they will be running into the types of teams that they consistently lose to in the quarters. This should be a really fun team to watch play spoiler for teams in title contention and they could find themselves sneaking into the playoffs.

12

LA Mad Drops

Hunter Johnson

DUPR: 6.62

Quang Duong

DUPR: 6.59

Catherine Parenteau

DUPR: 6.16

Jade Kawamoto

DUPR: 5.98

I really didn't know what to do with the Mad Drops, they really don't have a weak link, yet I have them well below the Hogs who have 3 weak links. Quong is a rising star but his recent results could indicate that players are starting to figure him out. I happen to think that Catherine has possibly dropped out of the top tier of women, but we will see. I just don't see a real alpha on this team, but I probably have them too low.

13

Phoenix Flames

Tyson McGuffin

DUPR: 6.73

Jack Sock

DUPR: 6.51

Jessie Irvine

DUPR: 5.92

Genie Bouchard

DUPR: 5.33

The Flames are the team that must be dominated by their marketing department, and will be putting more Instagram power out on the court than any other team. They could definitely win too. Genie and Jack have taken some time to figure pickleball out, but I don't have any reason to think they won't continue to improve. None of the Flames teams seems to be top tier though unless Tyson or Jack really catch fire.

14

Miami Pickleball Club

Jay Devilliers

DUPR: 6.68

Noe Khlif

DUPR: 6.49

Milan Rane

DUPR: 5.82

Mya Bui

DUPR: 4.99

It's going to be tough for these former Challenger teams in these first few years. I see a substantial gap between the top 13 teams and these last 3. They just don't have any players that we see consistently in the PPA quarterfinals while teams like the Shock have 4 players that you expect to see most weeks in the finals. I like Millie, but I've got a higher DUPR than Bui. Maybe we see some Ava Ignatowich? Jay and Noe should be good enough to edge out the Hard Eights and the tanking Hustlers.

15

SoCal Hard Eights

Ivan Jakovljevic

DUPR: 6.12

Blaine Hovenier

DUPR: 6.04

Judit Castillo

DUPR: 5.65

Irina Tereschenko

DUPR: 5.65

Of the peasant teams in Premier this year, this is my favorite lineup. I love Blaine and Judit, and the Eastern European block can be crafty. I hope to see them outperform, but they just don't have anything close to a top tier player. Expect to see Ryan Fu out there as well, there isn't much separation between the men on this team.

16

New York Hustlers

Donald Young

DUPR: 6.28

Zane Ford

DUPR: 5.71

Lingwei Kong

DUPR: 5.47

Dominique Schaefer

DUPR: 5.42

The Hustlers dropped their entire team and sat out the early part of the draft, and it shows. There won't be much pressure on this team to win, so maybe they play loose and do better than I expect. More likely we see this team get smashed by the top tier squads. We could definitely see some bench players get some time here because why not? Can't say I've ever seen Madonia or Spiridis hit a pickleball once though.