Columbus Sliders Making Moves And Subs Shining At Major League Pickleball San Clemente

Major League Pickleball (MLP), presented by DoorDash, rolled right into its sixth event of the 10-event season on the heels of last week’s PPA Orange County Cup on the grounds of Life Time San Clemente for a critical mid-season match featuring some of the “middle class” of the Premier League battling for playoff positioning, along with the entire slate of Challenger teams.

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

Ahead of the weekend, the following transactions were announced:

– MLP held its second Premier Waiver period (and only Challenger Waiver period) in the weeks leading up to this event, which featured a slew of moves more completely covered in this space earlier this month.

– Just after the Waiver period, we saw three significant trades:

1. St Louis acquired Judit Castillo from SoCal for Cailyn Campbell. Campbell immediately moved into SoCal’s starting lineup in San Clemente and went 3-7 in her first MLP Action. Not bad for a 15-yr old.

2. New Jersey gets Mari Humberg back, acquiring her from DC for Gecheva and cash. I’m not sure New Jersey played this player moving gambit well; if their intent was to get Humberg back, they should have just dropped her and re-bid for her in waivers. Instead, they have to go half the season undermanned (so to speak) and are unlikely to regain a playoff-bye spot at this point.

3. Carolina gets Tuiotenoa, Texas gets Christian & cash. This is an interesting move by two teams idle this past weekend, but which may have decent ramifications for Carolina, Ben Johns’ performance, and the tail end of the playoff race. Johns and Tuiotenoa were teammates on the strong 2023 Seattle Pioneers team, which won two of the three MLP events and made the Super Premier final before falling. Carolina has a long way to go, being dead last in the standings, but with a dominant weekend could push their way up the rankings.

News and Noteworthy

Ahead of the event, here’s some news and noteworthy items for MLP.

– The major organizational news was the general announcement by UPA that they are going to a prize money-based model going forward. MLP will see massive payday increases as detailed in the link here, which include an amazing $250k payday PER PLAYER to the MLP season winning team. I’m presuming we will see some major energy shifts in the league starting in 2026 with so much on the line.

With all that said, let’s recap MLP San Clemente:

Premier League Recap

Day 1 Observations

• The event’s Premier opener opened some eyes, as SoCal’s high-energy Hovenier won twice to force a DB. LA’s DB team is perhaps the best in the league and cruised 21-12 to get a scare but a win.
• In what had to be the most surprising result of the season, Brooklyn (playing with two men’s subs) downed the 4th place LA Mad Drops with relative ease. How is AJ Koller not on an MLP team?

Day 2 Observations

• LA got back in gear, cruising to a 3-0 lead quickly over Utah in one of the weekend’s marquee matches.
• Columbus completely outclassed Utah with a 4-game sweep, and should be properly reflected in the standings soon.
• SoCal got the moral victory of extending Phoenix to the DB but fell 21-19. Newcomer Ingram starting to shine in what would be Phoenix’s only win of weekend.

Day 3 Observations

• LA played to their strengths, pushing to a DB then beating one of the best DB teams out there in a statement win over Columbus.
• SoCal embarrassed the Jekyll & Hyde Utah team, who were flying how but who lose easily to the near-last place Hard Eights for their only win of the weekend.
• After benching Bouchard for Irvine, Phoenix pushed to a DB, then got waxed 21-6 by the superior LA singles attack in the weekend’s final match and finish with an event best 4-1 record

Challenger League Recap

Day 1 Observations

• They saved the best for “first” in Challenger; 1st vs 2nd early on Thursday further demonstrated the gulf between Las Vegas and the league, as they cruised to a 3-1 win over Nashville.
• Florida and MLP newcomers Campbell and Palau played fantastic as last place Florida got the big upset over Nashville.

Day 2 Observations

• Florida’s new personnel looks great, with their second straight upset of a top team with a 3-1 win over DC.
• Nashville’s men went undefeated to rebound from their Las Vegas loss with a 3-1 win over California.

Day 3 Observations

• DC escaped California by the skin of their teeth, winning No. 2 Mixed to force the DB, then taking it 23-21 to remain in the hunt for a top 2 finish.
• DC mounted a monumental comeback from 0-2 down after gender doubles to not only force the DB, but to take out the LV’s superior singles lineup to win 3-2 and give LV their first loss of the season.
• California swept gender doubles, but dropped both Mixed to get to the DB, where they outlasted Bay Area 23-21

Day 4 Observations

• Nashville topped Bay Area with relative ease, winning the first three games to clinch the match.
• In the finale, in one of the weekend’s marquee Challenger battles, No. 2 Nashville topped No. 3 DC to maintain their playoff bye spot after two events.

Team Standings Update post Event

Here’s the teams who made moves up or down the Standings in this event. Reminder, thanks to the unbalanced schedule I refer points per match (PPM) as the standings determiner, not total points earned.

In Premier

• The big mover was Columbus, who went just 3-1 this weekend but who jumped from 8th place to 5th in the standings.
• Despite going 4-1 on the weekend, LA drops one spot in the standings to now sit behind both Brooklyn and Columbus. LA has played four more matches than either Brooklyn or Columbus, which means there’s still plenty of room for jostling between these three teams. Positioning here is crucial for the playoffs: Whoever finishes 6th played into New Jersey instead of each other.

In Challenger

• California jumped Bay Area for 4th in the only standings change of the weekend.
• Despite staying in last place, Florida increased its PPM by a fair margin and is technically tied with Bay Area for 5th.

Player Standings/Stats Analysis for the Weekend:

Unfortunately, the resource we depend on for individual player analysis hasn’t been updated in time for this publication.

What did we learn this weekend?

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

1. When the dust has settled, the eventual playoff matchup between whoever finishes No. 4 and No. 5 will be fantastic. Brooklyn (currently in the 4-spot) just finished a 3-1 weekend playing with two men’s subs, which tells you all you likely need to know about the strength of their women. Meanwhile, Columbus (currently in the 5-spot) has two men are nearly unbeatable week in and week out.
2. If we hadn’t already said it before, Phoenix is a mess. On paper, they should have a decent team across the board, yet we learned that one of their players literally refused to play this weekend due to the level of effort of one of their teammates? Sock is now 11-27, Bouchard just 6-28 for the season, so clearly their gambit of getting “famous ex tennis pros who play pickleball” hasn’t led to on-the-court results. I’m not sure where they go from here.
3. Energy matters. Look no further than the performances of known high-energy/high-chemistry players this weekend like Koller, Hewett, and Hovenier.

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.

Summary for San Clemente: Klitch has introduced some new rules, which have leveled the playing field for sure. I went 5-3 for the weekend but somehow retain my top spot in the season long pundit competition.

Next up on the Pickleball Calendar? According to my Master Pickleball Schedule, we’re going right into MLP Event No. 7 next weekend, as the whole tour has to make a cross-country trip in just a couple of days to hold MLP NYC on the Holman Ice rink in Central Park.

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.