The first event of the 2025 Major League Pickleball (MLP) season is in the books.
28 matches were played over the course of the four-day event at the USTA National Campus, hosted by the Orlando Squeeze.
Crowds were huge and loud, cheering for their teams, and the action was exciting and drama filled.
First, we will start with the overall results and then get into the top storylines.
All match scorelines can be found here.
The MLP website has incorrect data for player data, so I have created a publicly facing Google Sheet to show all player stats.
This includes player stats, pickles, team standings, and Dreambreaker graphics.
My publicly available data can be found here.
Team Standings after MLP Orlando
Top 20 Player Standings after MLP Orlando
Let’s get into the top storylines of the event
The Dallas Flash Pick Up Where they Left Off
Jorja Johnson went 8-0 in her four matches, leading the Dallas Flash to a perfect 4-0 to start the year. The Flash earned all 12 possible points from their four matches, winning all four in regulation.
Jorja was so dominant, her combined scores in her eight wins were 88-15. She averaged scorelines of 11-1.9. Johnson was easily the MVP of the MLP Orlando event, and is firing on all cylinders.
Her teammates? Turns out they’re not too shabby themselves. Hurricane Tyra Black finished second in the standings, and Jorja’s brother JW, finished third in player standings. Augie Ge finished 11th, and was the only player on the team to lose two games (one mixed and one men’s).
The Flash are going to be a tough team to beat with the rise of Jorja Johnson. They do not play in MLP Columbus this weekend, so teams that are playing the event can breathe a sigh of relief.
The Change of Schedule to Focus on the Women’s Doubles Partnerships was a Huge Success
The “breakup” of women’s doubles partnerships was on full display on Sunday.
Because Anna Leigh and Catherine broke up and Rachel and Anna broke up, MLP leaned into the drama.
First up, Rachel and Anna Bright played an awesome match between Brooklyn and St. Louis. This one went down to the wire and went to a Dreambreaker, where the Shock were able to outlast the Brooklyn Pickleball Team.
Later in the day, Catherine Parenteau played against Anna Leigh Waters, in a LA Mad Drops vs. New Jersey 5s matchup. This one also went to a Dreambreaker, with Catherine and Jade giving Meghan Dizon and Anna Leigh Waters their first loss of the season. The 5s were able to pull out the win in the Dreambreaker, with Anna Leigh Waters clinching the winning point.
In the final matchup featuring the breakup players, new partners on the PPA Tour, Anna Bright and Anna Leigh Waters faced each other in the Sunday Night matchup. The Shock were able to win in regulation, 3-1, handing the 5s their first loss of the season.
This was a fiery contest that had a lot of drama and controversy. First, the Shock were able to win both gender doubles games, forcing the 5s to win both mixed games to get to a Dreambreaker.
In mixed, Anna Leigh and Will faced off against Hayden and Kate. There was some chirping during the game, but after the match, things got heated. Check it out below:
More to come on this as statements are made by players and the league.
Some Newcomers Were Very Good and Others Not So Much
The two best newcomers in the Premier Level were Eric Oncins and Samantha Parker.
Oncins plays for the Texas Ranchers, who finished third in the event, with 2.25 Points Per Match (PPM). His teammates are Etta Tuionetoa, Tina Pisnik (who he played mixed doubles with), and Christian Alshon. They went 3-1 on the weekend, and all their matches ended in regulation.
I would argue Oncins was the best player for the Ranchers through the majority of play. He finished in 7th place in terms of player standings, while his mixed doubles partner, Tina Pisnik, finished in fifth. They both six of the eight games they played. Going 3-1 in both gender and mixed doubles for his first time in Premier, Oncins stood up to the pressure.
Samantha Parker was the other newcomer standout from MLP Orlando. Parker plays for the hometown Orlando Squeeze and her teammates are Lacy Schneemann, Dylan Frazier, and Federico Staksrud. The Squeeze finished fourth on the weekend, earning 11 points from five matches (2.2PPM).
Parker was a big part of their success, as she was the X Factor headed into the 2025 season. She finished in the top half of players on the weekend (27th), going 5-5. In women’s doubles, Parker and Schneemann got pickled in their first match, by Jessie Irvine and Genie Bouchard of the Phoenix Flames. After that, they went 2-2. She went 3-2 with Dylan Frazier, and really stood in the last match of the day, beating Quang Duong and Catherine Parenteau of the LA Mad Drops, 12-10, to clinch a regulation win.
On the other side of the spectrum, many of the newcomers struggled, like we thought they would.
Of note, Helena Spiridis and Lingwei Kong, of the NY Hustlers, got pickled in both their women’s doubles games. Spiridis and Zane Ford also got pickled in a mixed match. Mya Bui went 1-9 for Miami, while showing flashes of brilliance, but needs to clean up her decisionmaking on shot selection moving forward. Victoria DiMuzio went 1-5 for the Atlanta Bouncers, but looked a lot steadier than the others mentioned.
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Distinct Tiers of Teams
Before MLP Orlando began, I created a tiered list of teams. For the most part, this stayed true. There were some scheduling issues related to strength of schedule that I think slightly skewed the results.
Later this week we will publish another tier of teams based on Orlando results. In the meantime, there seem to be four tiers in my mind:
- Title Contenders - Dallas and St. Louis
- Very Good Teams - New Jersey, Texas, Columbus, and Orlando
- Fighting for a Playoff Spot - Brooklyn, LA, Atlanta, Chicago, Phoenix, and Carolina
- Better Luck Next Year - Utah, Miami, SoCal, and NY
Obviously, we are one event in, and a lot can change. I could see a few teams changing tiers throughout the year up or down, but for the most part, if a team plays another team two or more tiers away, it’s going to be a blowout.
Home Team Hosting - Success and Failure
First of all, props to the Orlando Squeeze for hosting the first ever home team hosted event in MLP history. They hosted what looked like an amazing event, overall.
Some big highlights
- An amateur exhibition with former Orlando Magic and Orlando Squeeze members on Thursday night
- Fully resurfaced tennis courts at the USTA National Campus that played very well
- Great crowds and big time energy from the emcee on Championship Court, Kaitlyn Kerr
- Custom towels for fans at the Squeeze matches
The big miss
The elephant in the room is the courts. I love the creativity in using Squeeze colors, but no one thought to themselves, “I wonder what this will look like on stream?”
Three issues with the courts:
- The bright orange color outside the courts was too much.
- The light blue was too similar to the ball (on stream) and it was very difficult to track the ball.
- While I LOVE the MLP is getting new big-time sponsors, that ‘TORAY’ logo in the kitchen either needs to be smaller, a different color, or both. It has to be distracting for players that big and white.
Hopefully this was a “we tried it, it was a good idea, but the execution was off” type situation and MLP fixes it moving forward.
Three Rule Issues
There were three rules issues that MLP really needs to get fixed quickly.
Substitution Rule
2025 is the first time Premier Level teams have six roster spots. I am a big advocate for six roster spots, but I am actually perplexed how poorly managed this has been.
First, teams are not mandated to travel all six players, as evidenced this weekend, when Hunter Johnson cut his finger in a kitchen accident. LA didn’t travel Wes Burrows, so they were forced to choose between the on-site alternates of AJ Koller and Martin Emmrich. They chose Koller.
To be clear, the Mad Drops didn’t do anything wrong here. They followed the rules at hand. To be honest, they probably got lucky, because Koller is a better fit with the team than Burrows.
Secondly, all lineups now need to be submitted the night before, and there is no player playing mixed doubles and not gender doubles. Only four players are allowed to play a match.
This really begs the question: What is the point of the 5th and 6th roster spots at this point? In the 28 matches played, not one team used either of their 5th or 6th roster spots to mix up lineups.
New Service Rule
I hate writing and talking about service rules. In my opinion, we took a step backwards by about a year with the new service rule for 2025.
The inconsistency in referees from match to match with this new service fault thing is crazy... I don't really care what the rule is, but let's make it consistent.
— Erik Tice (@azetice) April 26, 2025
The Oncins stuff this morning and now the QD stuff. I believe this is the same ref 2x now, but could be wrong.
On…
The service rule is so subjective now. We need more objectivity in the service rule, not less. The worst part? Players cannot challenge any of these service rule calls. So if a referee misses a call, we cannot get the call right. Which is what we are trying to do, correct?
Challenging Your Own Call
Speaking of getting the call right, this has to be fixed. On the PPA Tour, a player can call a ball in, but challenge their own in ruling, if they think it was probably out.
With replay systems available, albeit nowhere near the Close Call Replay system of late 2024, this makes the most sense. Just get the call right, and do it efficiently.
This weekend, Eric Oncins and Christian Alshon had a situation where Alshon called the ball out and Oncins called the ball in, on a match on Grandstand Court against the Chicago Slice.
Alshon was adamant it was out. Referee Onisha Smith correctly said if one player calls it in, then the team’s call is in.
Christian then argued and asked to challenge the in ruling. Oneisha again correctly stated in MLP, it’s not possible to challenge your own calls. From there, Alshon asked for head referee, Courtney Johnson, to come out and figure it out. Johnson did, and ruled against the Ranchers and Alshon, awarding a point to the Slice.
This all took well over 15 minutes, and could have been a simple challenge and two minute review, if challenging your own in ruling was allowed. Having two different rules between PPA and MLP about this doesn’t make much sense.
Conclusion
There is still a ton of pickleball to be played in the 2025 season. The MLP Orlando event was a great start. Get ready though, because MLP Columbus starts this Thursday. Be on the lookout for a full preview on Wednesday, available in our newsletter, as well.
