St. Louis Shock Sweep Home Major League Pickleball Event To Go Top Of The Table

There’s no rest for the weary; just a few days after the exciting Mid-Season tournament in Grand Rapids finished up, a handful of Major League Pickleball (MLP)’s teams headed right to St. Louis for the eighth of ten regular season events. The St. Louis Shock played host to the weekend’s festivities, which they held at the Chaifetz Arena on the grounds of St. Louis University. The arena is named for the Chaifetz family, who also happen to be the owners of the hosting St. Louis Shock team, and who personally guaranteed this event to be the “biggest event of the season.” One thing is for sure; the setup of the Arena made this look more like a full-on professional sporting event than the league has ever had before; even at our nicest facilities, most pickleball tournaments are held at Country Clubs or parks where temporary stands are built; in St. Louis the arena look and feel really showed what MLP’s founders intended; a home-supported team event where tickets are sold and fans show up just to watch, and not also to play in the event.

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.

Transaction Recap

See my separate story from earlier discussing the massive Ben Johns trade and its implications for the title race and the league in general.

Premier League Recap

Day 1 Observations

• Chicago got the weekend started with a topsy-turvy DreamBreaker win over Atlanta, regaining momentum after an 11-0 Mixed loss. It would be the only win of the weekend for Chicago.
• It took a bit for Brooklyn to shake off the cobwebs, but they swept Mixed to win 3-1 over Chicago and keep the pressure on the top three teams.

Day 2 Observations

• Jorja Johnson took a rare loss (she entered the weekend 26-2 for the season) but Dallas rebounded to stay undefeated with a 3-1 win over Brooklyn in one of the weekend’s marquee matches.
• Columbus’ Parris Todd & Lea Jansen rebounded after an earlier loss to shock Bright & Fahey in the opener (they were 13-1 as a team this season), but then host St. Louis cruised to a 3-1 win without much additional trouble.

Day 3 Observations

• Dallas is undefeated no more: Columbus put another loss on Jorja early, then played the Mixed matchups well and outlasted Dallas 21-16 in the DreamBreakery to give the Flash their first loss of the season.
• In the weekend’s marquee matchup, St. Louis dominated Dallas in a rematch of last weekend’s mid-season tournament final. They won the two gender doubles ties 11-3, 11-1 before clinching with a crushing 11-3 mixed win where Patriquin lit up Ge with his second body bag of the day.

Day 4 Observations

• STL finished off an undefeated home weekend with a come-from-behind win over Brooklyn, one of their top rivals, to move into 1st place.
• Brooklyn cost me my “lock of the week” pick with a dominant bounce-back win over Columbus 3-1 to finish off their weekend on a high note. This win also sealed 4th place for Brooklyn over their close rivals Columbus, though both might get caught by LA if their cards fall right.

Challenger League Recap

Day 1 Observations

• Alix Truong led Bay Area to another h2h win over their West Coast Rival California, this time in a DreamBreaker.
• After dropping Ladies doubles to start, first place Las Vegas roared back behind top dog Tellez to win 3-1 over DC.

Day 2 Observations

• Bay Area came back from 0-2, sweeping mixed and then cruising in the DreamBreaker 21-13 for the big upset. Bay Area is using Jonathan Truong filling in for Querrey and playing mixed with sister Alix Truong.
• In the marquee Challenger matchup of the weekend, a rematch of the Mid-Season final, Las Vegas blew the doors off of Nashville. Both Mixed matches were not close and the Night Owls makes a statement.

Day 3 Observations

• Las Vegas destroyed the Bay Area Breakers 4-0 to pave the way for an undefeated weekend.
• California continued the helter-skelter Challenger weekend, topping Nashville in a DB 22-20. It would be their only win of the weekend.
• Well, that’s why they play the games. Last place Florida shocked DC by winning the first three close matches before dropping the meaningless final. It was Florida’s only win on the weekend.

Day 4 Observations

• One last DreamBreaker for Nashville, edging their closest rival for 2nd place DC 24-22.
• Las Vegas completed a clean, undefeated weekend by finishing off last-place Florida 3-1.

Team Standings Update post Event

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

In Premier

• The big news is the change at the top; St. Louis now boasts more than 3.00 points-per-match and sits in first place with an 18-1 record for the season.
• Dallas drops to 2nd, albeit with a massive advantage over New Jersey at the top.
• The race for 4th place between Brooklyn and Columbus tightened a bit, but Columbus’ two losses this weekend cost them a decent amount of PPM in the standings.
• Chicago’s 1-5 weekend cost them two spots in the standings: they now sit 12th and are out of the playoff race for now. However, one has to think Carolina will be dropping in the standings, and Miami (who sits in 10th place right now) is just 3 points ahead of Chicago for the last playoff spot with a couple of events to go.

In Challenger

• Las Vegas really widened their lead at the top, and now have a 14 point lead in the standings. They have not quite clinched 1st place, but are close to it for the year.
• The rest of the Challenger standings did not change 1 through 6, but California did a solid job of gaining on Bay Area for 4th in PPM.

What did we learn this weekend?

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

1. Not only is Dallas beatable, now they may not even be the favorites for the title.
2. When St. Louis’ players are focused, they’re not only the favorites but the dominant favorites to win any match. Three of the four games they played against Dallas were in the 11-3 blow-out range.
3. “Home Field” absolutely matters. The home crowds pumped up the Shock and rattled the Flash. This is a takeaway other teams will be looking to emulate in the events they host going forward.

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. Here’s how we did this week, and where we stand overall.

Summary: I had my worst week predicting matches yet. I missed four matches outright, including both Dallas losses, and took a penalty point as well for missing my “lock of the week” when Brooklyn shocked Columbus on Sunday afternoon. I maintain a very small lead over Jim Kloss, aka “the smartest man in pickleball,” for the season long competition.

Next up on the Pickleball Calendar? According to my Master Pickleball Schedule, we’re right back into Week 9 of MLP, this time heading to Dallas.

The Dallas field is loaded. All three of the league’s top teams are there (NJ, STL, Dallas) along with the dangerous Texas Ranchers. Lastly the LA Mad Drops and their new acquisition Johns will be in action for the first time, which should make for a super-interesting weekend.

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.