The Columbus Sliders Finish off their Cinderella Run To The 2025 Major League Pickleball Title

Your 2025 MLP Premier League Champs. From L-R Andrei Daescu, Parris Todd, CJ Klinger, and Lea Jansen.

MLP

Major League Pickleball (MLP) presented by DoorDash finished off its highly successful 2025 season with its 2025 New York City event, featuring the Semis and Finals of the Premier League playoffs and the Finals of the Challenger division. The best of the best traveled to NYC to play on one of the league’s most successful 2024 venues, the City Pickle Wollman Courts in Central Park South.

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 also secured major broadcasting time for parts of the final, including a live broadcast on CBS’ national network Noon Saturday.

News and Noteworthy

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

– As is custom in the MLP, the top seed St. Louis Shock was able to “pick” its semi-final opponent from one of the lower seeded teams, and to no surprise avoided the Ben Johns-led LA Mad Drops and picked Columbus. This is noteworthy since Columbus was also “picked’ by Dallas last week in a failed gambit that led to the defending champion’s ouster in the quarter final round.

– From the moment play started, it was clear that the championship court had some “dead spots,” one in the kitchen and another towards the back court line on what would be “stage-right” on the standard side-court camera. These dead spots led to more than a few unforced errors during dink battles, and an uncharacteristic number of service return errors by pros who almost never miss their 2nd shots.

– The big news on the MLP front from a business perspective was the announcement that the LA Mad Drops have sold a controlling stake at a franchise at a whopping $13 million valuation to Mad Drippin SPV, LLC, headed by Alex Geesbreght, owner and
operator of PRAX Leadership. Mad Drippin SPV, LLC is a Texas-based group with deep professional and personal ties to the Greater Los Angeles area.

– The press release for the Mad Drops sale also drops an interesting data point for the 25th franchise sold a few weeks ago that we hadn’t heard before. The Palm Beach Royals sold for a $16M valuation, and rumors are that they’ll go straight to the premier league for 2026. Did they sell at a $3M premium in order to bypass Challenger? One thing to keep in mind, “valuation” isn’t the same thing as “cash” in these transactions, as the league attempts to keep franchise values moving in an upwards trajectory.

Premier League Playoffs Recap

Semis No. 1: No 1. St. Louis Shock vs No. 5 Columbus Sliders

• Semis Match 1: Columbus fired the first salvo, jumping out to a huge lead in Women’s Doubles and holding on for an 11-7 win behind relentless attacking from Parris Todd. STL’s dominant male pair of Tardio & Patriquin (24-1 in the regular season) took a rare loss as CJ Klinger, whose sunglasses look like what the optometrist gives you after eye dilation, held firm and the underdogs jumped out to a 2-0 lead. This led STL into a pickle; they chose to react to Columbus’ mixed schedule by sending out their #2 team against Daescu/Todd, Columbus’ #1 mixed team. This proved to be a fatal decision, as Daescu/Todd cruised to an 11-5 game-3 win over Tardio/Fahey to complete the shocking sweep 3-0 in the first match of the semis.
• Semis Match 2: STL’s ladies came out in new uniforms and with a new approach, racing to a 7-0 lead and holding on for an 11-6 win. In game 2, the once-unbeatable STL Men’s team once again looked quite beatable, as Daescu & Klinger destroyed the teenage duo to move into Mixed even at 1-1. STL switched up their mixed pairings this time, sending out their top team Bright/Hayden versus Columbus’ top team, and they delivered, dominating play with Hayden putting on a dinking and hands clinic winning 11-5 to move to Mixed #2. There, Lea & Klinger got another Mixed win to force the DB. There, the Sliders never really were challenged and cruised to a 21-13 DB win to sweep the semis 2-0 to move into the finals.

Semis No. 2: No. 3 New Jersey 5’s vs No. 6 LA Mad Drops

• Semis Match 1: In the opener, NJ’s ladies crushed LA 11-3 to open up the tie with a statement. NJ is certainly getting the advantage of being close to home and has a raucous crowd cheering them on. In the Men’s Doubles tie, NJ’s men jumped out to a lead, but LA caught all the way back up and had two shots at game point saved. Opportunity missed; NJ scored three quick points to turn a 9-10 deficit into a 12-10 win for a sweep of gender doubles. In game three, we got GOAT vs GOAT; ALW vs Johns as both teams sent their #1 mixed squads out. With their backs to the wall, Ben Johns dominated play on his side of the court, but the NJ pair of Waters & Howells would not break. Johns pressed, which led to errors, which led to a dominant 11-2 win and a sweep in their first match of the playoff series.
• Semis Match 2: This match was a mirror-image of the first match. ALW and Meghan have fully gelled together as a partnership and ground out a win. Khlif and Howells again beat Ben Johns attempting to cover too much court 12-10 to hand the match over to ALW, who dominated again in Mixed to win 3-0.

Finals: No. 3 New Jersey 5’s vs No. 5 Columbus Sliders

• Finals Match 1: NJ played its team construction like a fiddle, and won in a DreamBreaker… but didn’t get there as one might expect (two ALW wins). ALW and Dizon destroyed Jansen & Todd to start, but then Daescu & Klinger returned the favor. NJ sent out their #2 team first, and Dizon & Khlif got a dominant win to make it seem like NJ was going to hand it to ALW and Howells for a 3-1 win, but Columbus had other ideas. Daescu & Todd crushed ALW and Howells to force a DB. In the DB, NJ jumped out to an early lead but Columbus clawed their way back to tie it heading into the third rotation before Meghan Dizon stepped it up bigtime to hand a lead to the boys to finish it of 21-17 for the first match win on national TV.
• Finals Match 2: The second meeting mirrored the first, with all four doubles matches going the same way. ALW and Dizon destroyed Jansen & Todd to open, but once again ALW & Howells couldn’t handle Daescu & Todd at the Mixed #1 spot, leading to another DreamBreaker. This time around, Columbus was spirited and supercharged, took control early, and never looked back while cruising to a 21-15 win to force the deciding match late Sunday afternoon.
• Finals Match 3:No changes in the lineups, and for the third time this weekend the two teams split gender doubles; ALW and Dizon dominated to a win, then Daescu & Klinger cruised to a win. Then a change; Jansen & Klinger crushed their Mixed match where they’d lost twice to NJ this weekend, which meant that the pressure was on Howells & Waters to turn around a losing combination. A tense affair ensued in the do-or-die game, and Howells tightened up, missing multiple balls, overheads, and serves. Meanwhile, Todd & Daescu kept up the pressure, never missed, did a great job of neutralizing Waters, and won the 4th game 11-6 to secure the title. Fittingly, Todd hit a beautiful backhand passing shot for the win and the title.

Challenger League Playoffs Recap

Finals:

• Finals Match 1: LV, who entered this match 5-1 against Nashville this season, showed why with a comprehensive 3-1 win to open their series. After squeaking out the Men’s tie 12-10 and dropping the Women’s tie 11-6, they dominated in mixed with a healthy dose of trash talk from Most Improved Player award winner james Delgado to take the first match of the final 3-1.
• Finals Match 2: Nashville regrouped overnight and came out swinging, taking both Gender doubles matches without too much trouble. LV pulled back one of the mixed matches, but then Scarpa came to life and powered his team to a win over Delgado & Wang to take the match 3-1 and force the decider later on Sunday.
• Finals Match 3: Nashville jumped to a 5-1 lead in the opener … then gave up 10 unanswered to give LV a 11-5 ladies win to open the final. From there, Nashville took over and looked for the better part of an hour like they were going to close it out pre-DreamBreaker. Buckner & Tellez somehow scratched out a win in their shaky Mixed match to force a DreamBreaker … then Las Vegas exploded; a sweep by Tellez to start, a dominant 7-1 lead that turned the DreamBreaker into a laugher. By the time the dust settled, LV had won 21-9 to win the match, win the final, and secure promotion to Premier.

Unofficial MVPs of the Playoff Series

MLP used to name MVPs for each event, but now just does it for the season. However, there were two pretty eye-opening performances for this observer this weekend, so here’s my two unofficial MLP Finals MVPs;

• Premier MVP: Andrei Daescu. Daescu went undefeated in Men’s doubles with partner Klinger this weekend, dominating especially the STL team that was unbeatable all year. Then he went 6-2 in total with Mixed partner Parris Todd, including three straight wins over an Anna Leigh Waters-led Mixed team in the finals. Daescu’s length let him dominate for long stretches at the net, and his leadership and poise were a huge reason Columbus shocked the league with the title.
• Challenger MVP: Anderson Scarpa. I don’t normally like to give MVPs to a player on the losing team, but Scarpa was a step ahead of Las Vegas’ top performer (Brooke Buckner) this weekend; he went 8-2 combined and had the best points won percentage by a fair margin. If you feel the MVP needs to come from the winner, then Buckner (who like Scarpa also went 8-2 combined this weekend) is the choice.

What did we learn this weekend?

What were our top Takeaways from the competition this weekend.

1. Hayden Patriquin at times is a literal sorcerer on the court, hitting impossible half volleys and dinks from angles that are unhittable. I’m not sure who else out there is more deserving of the heir-apparent GOAT title in the sport once Ben Johns gives up the title.
2. St. Louis may have dominated the regular season, but they couldn’t handle the pressure of the playoffs for the second straight season. There weren’t any major strategy gaffes in the semis: they just got beat. When your Men’s Doubles team goes 24-1 in the regular season and then 0-2 in the Playoffs, there’s not much else you can do.
3. We all got dazzled by the top 3 teams all year, but it was the veteran presence of Columbus’ stars that won out. Taking a step back, we probably should have known that a team with three established and accomplished stars would do better than expected.
4. New Jersey can look no further than the fact that a mixed team with Waters lost all three of its matches in the final as the reason for its demise. Waters can probably win a PPA mixed title with a dozen different players, but just couldn’t get the job done with Howells this weekend.
5. The league got its Ben Johns vs Anna Leigh Waters matchup, and it was a dud.
6. NYC and Holman Rink is an amazing venue, with great crowds and amazing sightlines. However ….
7. The roll-out court used for this match needs to be revisited; all weekend we saw basic service return misses and netted simple dinks from the world’s best players thanks to multiple dead spots on the court. Stat-heavy sites crunched the numbers and discovered that there were far fewer attacks off the dink in NYC, and the reason attributed was a far less bouncy surface. Players were visibly frustrated all weekend, and some let the surface get into their heads. Yes, both sides had to play on the same court and had the same challenges, but you don’t want major competitions decided by fluke bounces on a bad surface.
8. Lastly, we’ve talked for years about how the PPA rewards consistency while MLP rewards passion. Well, tack on pressure there too. Clearly, some of these players just cannot handle the pressure/stress of being in such a do or die situation, while others thrive at it.

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: the season long competition came to an end, and I got caught at the end. All 12 pundits in the competition picked St. Louis to win it at the onset of the playoffs, and the only people to pick a Columbus upset were the bottom-dwellers trying to be contrarian. Oh, and Jim Kloss, who hedged his initial pick and selected Columbus because it was the only way I could be caught at the top … and that’s what happened. By virtue of Columbus winning, I lost the season-long competition by one measly point.

Next up on the Pickleball Calendar? According to my Master Pickleball Schedule , the APP heads to Chicago this weekend, while the PPA heads to Las Vegas in a very recently-added event at the Las Vegas Convention center.

Next up for the MLP? TBD: the 2025 season is over, and we’ll probably go a few months without any news before we head into the off-season. This coming off-season will be an interesting one transitionally, as we’re in year two of a slew of three-year draftees, meaning a number of teams will be forced to drop key members of their team into the waiver process. I’d imagine we won’t get into these “making the sausage” type posts for months.

MLP-specific stats mentioned herein come from PickleKey.com, which has done a great job collecting detailed MLP player data for the league.

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