MLP 2025 Premier Draft Grades

Another year. Another draft. It was more of a reset considering the tenuous keeper situation that was created by MLP, which led to a unique partial reshuffling of players. One thing that we keep harping on, though, has been the inability of MLP to create an event out of the draft.

Draft content is the lowest hanging fruit in pro sports these days and it doesn’t feel like MLP is even trying to take it off the tree. We get that this draft software for the dynamic bidding process does not really lend itself to creating a draft event, but there has to be a creative way to do better. It was a step in the right direction to have a separate media draft room so that fans could get real time updates from people covering the draft. It’s just not enough. 

Erik Tice and Matt Klitch had a live stream that was pushing close to 200 live viewers at one point. That might not seem like much but the fact that there were 140 people still watching well into the 2nd part of the draft is telling that there is a segment of people who care about the content. We did our own live blog and the amount of views we had for our site that has been pretty much dormant for over a year surprised us. 

A few Instagram posts and a preview video on YouTube is underwhelming, to say the least. The effort put in by MLP to publicize the draft feels more like going through the motions rather than a true priority. The Tour Wars are not an excuse anymore. They should be dedicated to figuring this out.

Anyway, it is time for what might be our favorite column of the year and that is the draft grades! The standard disclaimer is that these grades are based solely on how we see these teams performing on court in 2025 and beyond. Off-court considerations may be noted, but they do not factor into the grades.

It also sounds like there could be 3 to 5 trades to be made after the trade window opens back up on Tuesday at 4pm EST – we have noted the apparent Bouchard for Dizon trade in the column below. A final reminder is that we have to keep referring to this as dynamic bidding (NOT an auction) and draft points (NOT dollars), even though it is an auction draft and the owners are paying real dollars. 

St. Louis Shock 

Kate Fahey (#1, 130,000); Felicity Di Laura (#25, 10,100); Erik Lange (#28, 10,000)

Other Rostered Players: Anna Bright, Gabe Tardio, Hayden Patriquin

Kate Fahey going back to the Shock was the least, well, shocking thing to happen in the draft. The Chaifetz family loves the Shock and are happy to spend money on their team. It is interesting that in the 2024 draft and 2025 draft, it appears that teams ended up conceding the bidding process to the teams they knew were going to spend more. 130,000 as the highest bid is much lower than what was expected a couple of months ago. 

There are a few teams you take note of when unknown players get selected by them and Felicity Laura, wife of Carlos Di Laura, fits that bill as the female bench slot pick for an Anna Bright led team. Erik Lange, former St. Louis Shock member from 2023, is the perfect 3rd guy for this team. We expect he’ll likely serve in a coach/mentor type of role, and he can fill in capably if something happens to Tardio or Patriquin. 

St. Louis was a favorite to win MLP in 2024 and they will undoubtedly be one of the favorites in 2025. 

Grade: A 

Dallas Flash  

Augie Ge (#2, 100,000); DJ Young (#42, 4,000); Tatiana Ruhl (#53, $1,000)

Other Rostered Players: JW Johnson, Jorja Johnson, Hurricane Tyra Black 

It was reported that Dallas turned down significant money in trade offers for Augie Ge before the draft so teams knew that they were going to spend to get him back. This may have been another example of price suppression in a dynamic bidding process as other teams were not inclined to bid up Dallas when they felt those efforts were futile. Dallas won a championship in 2024 and Ge represented the best option for their roster in the player pool, particularly from a personality fit. 

A big thing for Dallas is that it appears Jorja Johnson and Tyra Black keep getting better. There also should still be room for Augie as well as even JW to mature as players. 

DJ Young is a fine choice as a capable fill-in bench player when healthy. We have both watched more than enough Tatiana Ruhl and are unable to understand why she was selected. 

Grade: A- 

Columbus Sliders 

Lea Jansen (#3, 110,000); Roscoe Bellamy (#32, 10,000); Marcela Hones (#44, 4,000) 

Other Rostered Players: Andrei Daescu, CJ Klinger, Parris Todd 

It was unclear to us what the market would be for Lea Jansen after the NY Hustlers presumably couldn’t find a landing spot for her. The spot makes sense for Jansen as she was the only female in the available pool capable of playing the left side in women’s and mixed at the level needed to contend for a title.  If things start out well for Columbus, this team could be scary.

A theme for these bench spots is that upside becomes far less important when teams can steal your bench players during the designated waiver periods. Even though Bellamy doesn’t present much doubles upside, he is going to be a steady presence, who can capably fill in as he demonstrated last year. Marcela Hones, on the other hand, is an odd choice. 

Columbus wants to win and there were no other realistic options as end up spending close to $900,000 to put this team together, if you include trades.  

Grade: B 

DC Pickleball Team 

Riley Newman (#4, 110,000); Hannah Blatt (#29, 9,500); Pat Smith (#40, 3,000)

Other Rostered Players: Rachel Rohrabacher, Jackie Kawamoto, Dekel Bar 

This is undoubtedly a playoff team, and they are essentially running out two #1 level mixed teams on paper. But time will tell as to whether running back half of a 2023 championship team in 2025 is going to work. Things change so fast in pickleball, and Riley Newman’s game is pretty much the same as it was two years ago. While Bar and Rohrbacher are both more than capable singles players, DC will run out another Dreambreaker group that does not have a single player who regularly grinds singles events. We want to believe in this team, but there is something telling us that they might not have it what it takes to be championship level.

A clear trend in this draft for the bench spots were players drafted for marketing or a coach/mentor type role instead of upside. Hannah Blatt’s results have been declining not ascending and Pat Smith is a long-time veteran who has shared some memorable moments with Riley Newman. Both bench picks make sense, but DC is going to be in trouble if one of their players gets injured. 

Grade: B 

Chicago Slice 

James Ignatowich (#5, 90,000); Vivienne David (#9, 80,000); Max Freeman (#10, 80,000); Callie Smith (#12, 70,000); Pierina Imparato (#51, 1,500); Carlos Di Laura (#56, 1,000) 

Other Rostered Players: None

Big ups to the Chicago ownership group. Despite getting completely f—ed over by the rules, they decided to go after it. It was somewhat surprising to see them go with James Ignatowich at this spot instead of potentially Quang Duong to anchor their squad.

Something to keep in mind here is that Carlos Di Laura was the Chicago coach last year and is very close to the GM of the Texas Ranchers, Ryan Dawidjan. We have to expect that Di Laura was in conversations with the Slice decision-makers prior to the draft and they may have had some extra insider information when making their decision on who they wanted to build around. On a related note, we are two of the more skeptical people when it comes to Duong’s long-term potential and have questions as to whether his style will lead to him being a truly elite pro.

People are very high on Max Freeman and we don’t have a strong opinion on him. The upside is good and to have 3 more established players with upside in Freeman presents hope for this roster. Callie Smith is quite comfortable, albeit limited, on the left in mixed as well. Furthermore, there is upside on this roster beyond Freeman as Ignatowich and David are two buy-low assets that could improve their stock.

This roster could be extremely mediocre if Ignatowich and David can’t figure out how to raise their level, but this is a good conventional, unconventional total overhaul for Chicago. 

Grade: B+

Phoenix Flames 

Jack Sock (#6, 100,000), Alex Walker (#41, 35,000), Pesa Teoni (#48, 3,000)

Other Rostered Players: Tyson McGuffin, Meghan Dizon, Jessie Irvine

Let’s get this out of the way at the start. Phoenix made a mistake and accidentally published a welcome post on social media for Genie Bouchard. It sounds like close to a sure thing that Phoenix and the New Jersey 5’s already had a trade in place to swap Dizon for Bouchard and cash. So we’re operating the grades for Phoenix and NJ on that basis while keeping in mind we have heard rumblings of Darling reneging on agreed upon deals at the 11th hour prior to the draft.

Charles Darling is a mad, mad scientist. Jack Sock, Tyson McGuffin, Genie Bouchard and Jessie Irvine. One guarantee is that it will be must see pickleball to begin with. 

On the positive side, Jack Sock is apparently working on his game, finally. He’s in much better shape and that should continue to improve. The biggest question for us with Sock is whether he has the mind to play pickleball. The most concerning aspect of his game is not his backhand. It’s that he hasn’t been able to figure out the decision-making aspect of the game at the highest level. We actually think Sock is currently underrated as a pickleball asset relative to the general consensus, but he’s also not ready to be a lead dog on a team. 

Assuming our information is correct, Darling is creating an all-marketing team in spite of reports that Genie Bouchard is unhappy with the schedule of the MLP season. By all accounts, Genie Bouchard is slowly getting better but she is still not working very hard. Tyson McGuffin and Jessie Irvine haven’t seen the decline that seemed inevitable this time last year. It’s going to be an eclectic group of personalities on this team and it could turn into a zoo if this team is not winning. Charles Darling may not understand what he’s getting himself into because running a pro pickleball team is all fun and games until you aren’t winning. 

Alex Walker and Pesa Teoni are Proton players so it makes sense for them to go on the bench for this team. 

Grade: C 

LA Mad Drops 

Quang Duong (#7, 80,000); Thomas Wilson (#46, 4,000); Angie Walker (#49, 2,000) 

Other Rostered Players: Catherine Parenteau, Jade Kawamoto, Hunter Johnson 

We disagreed on what the Mad Drops could put together with their current roster as it didn’t feel like this would be a landing spot for Quang Duong. However, this team is suddenly quite frisky with two strong mixed teams, a roller coaster scary men’s team and a legit Dreambreaker group. As noted above in the Chicago grades, we have our questions on the long-term trajectory of Duong but you really couldn’t ask for much more in the draft if you are the Mad Drops. They should be quite competitive in 2025

It’s interesting that they decided to bring back Thomas Wilson as they would have as much information as any team on his health situation. As pointed out by Johnny5PointOh on X, the Mad Drops could use the designated IR slot to stash Wilson and see how his health progresses. Angie Walker is a fine selection at that spot in the draft for a final bench spot. 

Grade: A- 

New Jersey 5’s 

Genie Bouchard (#8, 90,000); Christa Gecheva (#33, 10,500); Craig Johnson (#47, 3,000) 

Other Rostered Players: Anna Leigh Waters, Zane Navratil, Will Howells 

If you didn’t read any of the earlier parts of these grades, we expect the 5’s are going to be getting Meghan Dizon for Genie Bouchard. Not surprisingly, the 5’s had something up their sleeves and will round out the roster with a more natural fit in the beta female and #2 mixed spot. Dizon was miscast as a #1 female last year and it will be interesting to see how well she can do with ALW and Zane. 

We had wondered if the 5’s had any issues with Mari Humberg and the confidence she brings to the court, but her personality lent itself very well to the pressure that it takes to play with ALW. That may be a super underrated skill and we’ll have to see how Dizon handles the heat that comes with being on the 5’s. 

We also continue to believe the 5’s could have positioned themselves better by simply dropping Zane instead of Mari. Seeing how cheap all these other guys went, the 5’s could have saved themselves some money or found a better asset than Dizon to trade for. Not to mention that Navratil is a depreciating asset for every team other than the 5’s and he better win some matches since this team is no longer the Dreambreaker cheat code that they were in 2024. 

The bench spots are fine as well. There’s not much to talk about there.

Grade: C+ 

Atlanta Bouncers 

Victoria Di Muzio (#11, 70,000); Sam Querrey (#37, 5,000), Rachel Rettger (#43, 5,000) 

Other Rostered Players: Jaume Martinez Vich, Todd Fought, Vivian Glozman 

The Blake Bortles-esque rise of Victoria Di Muzio is one of the more befuddling things to happen in the past couple of weeks. We actually have more familiarity with Di Muzio than a lot of the other unknown women as she is a product of the CNPL, Canada’s “pro” team league. We went back through our text messages and found the below screenshotted exchange between us from July 2024. Although Di Muzio stood out from a Canadian talent perspective, there wasn’t anything that we saw last yer to indicate she is some hidden gem of a talent that would be wrecking the PPA. 

We’re far from perfect and it is logical to go with upside in this draft, but it’s hard to understand why Di Muzio has quickly become the upside poster child for this crop of unknown women. Interestingly, she has two very legitimate partners in Quang Duong and Callie Smith coming up in Cape Coral so maybe we are dead wrong. 

Sam Querrey is an interesting pick for the Anheuser-Busch team as he has a dynamite social media game and brings a different set of eyeballs to the franchise as a bench player. Rachel Rettger, another fine enough selection. 

Grade: C 

Utah Black Diamonds 

Mehvish Safdar (#13, 50,000); Genie Erokhina (#38, 4,500); Yates Johnson (#45, 3,500) 

Other Rostered Players: Connor Garnett, Tyler Loong, Alix Truong 

Mehvish Safdar was a very late UPA signee, and she ends up getting picked by the team who had the direct ability to ensure she was UPA signed before the draft Must be nice. No conflict, at all. 

Conflicts aside, it is notable that the Pardoe family spent real money to get Safdar as a complete unknown player. One match 3 months ago against superior talent can be quite misleading but there is footage from her world’s match against Callie Smith/Lucy Kovalova available on YouTube. Safdar appears to have good hands and power, but there’s some red flag stuff showing up in her soft game that may be a poor indicator of future success. But again, we have so little to go off of here and are glad to see the Pardoe’s not completely tanking the draft a la 2024. 

Given Safdar’s lack of experience, Genie Erokhina was a solid pick as a viable bench player so late in the draft. Yates Johnson can also fill in. 

Utah might be bad in 2025, but they might not be as bad as at least a couple of teams in Premier. 

Grade: C

Texas Ranchers

Noe Khlif (#14, 50,000); Michael Loyd (#26, 10,000); Helena Jansen (#27, 10,000)

Other Rostered Players: Christian Alshon, Etta Wright, Tina Pisnik 

We absolutely love what the Ranchers did here. It should be highlighted that the Ranchers stayed patient in this draft even though they were one of the few teams bidding 6 figure amounts early in this draft. It also should be emphasized that Quang Duong went for less than 6 figures and the Ranchers chose to stay patient. They know as much about Duong than any non-Duong family member out there and that they were not chomping at the bit to run it back with Duong might not be a good sign for him. 

Noe Khlif was arguably the best, non-Premier 2024 guy available in this draft along with Max Freeman and he keeps getting quality results. Khlif is a steady, ball-maker who is adding weapons to his arsenal, which should fit well with the team construction that the Ranchers have. We’ll expect Khlif to start on the left with Alshon playing his almost alpha right side and then Khlif/Pisnik are going to make a combined two unforced errors across all the events. 

It’s clear the Ranchers are prioritizing their bench spots as development areas, unlike a lot of other teams. They go with the Austin-based Michael Loyd and Helena Jansen for 10,000 each. For what it’s worth, the three non-Premier women in the player pool we had at the top of our list included Helena Jansen (the other two being Mya Bui and Samantha Parker). We don’t feel great about that but just throwing it out there. 

Grade: A

NY Hustlers 

Zane Ford (#15, 30,000); Donald Young (#16, 30,000); Helena Spiridis (#19, 20,000); Dominique Schaefer (#20, 20,000); Juan Benitez (#31, 10,000); Danna Funaro (#34, 10,500)

Other Rostered Players: None

On the bright side, it could have been worse for the Hustlers. Not much worse. But it could have been worse. When you are trying to save money and then spend 60,000 on Zane Ford and Donald Young when players like Noe Khlif are going for $50,000, it doesn’t feel right. In a vacuum, though, Ford and Young are reasonable bets on potential upside.

The bigger issue is spending 60,000 on two men and then spending 40,000 on two women, who probably would have been available as bench spots in this draft. Spiridis looks a long way from ready and Schaefer has been playing pickleball for a while without any consistent doubles results (the singles is good, though). 

The Hustlers then proceeded to spend 10,000 and 10,500 respectively on two players that they probably could have gotten for 1,000 each. We know nothing about either Juan Benitez or Danna Funaro, other than Benitez won that UPA open tryout recently. Maybe they know something that we don’t about both those players. 

If the men can win half of their matches, it would be a huge victory for the Hustlers as they will need to find a way to play some Dreambreakers. If the Hustlers somehow avoid being a bottom 3 team in Premier, color us impressed. The men’s selections are a B- and the women are an F so we’ll give this team.a combined C-.

Grade: C- 

Miami PC 

Mya Bui (#17, 20,000); Jay Devilliers (#20, 30,000); Yuta Funemizu (#39, 4,500); Ava Ignatowich (#50, 2,000) 

Other Rostered Players: Eric Oncins, Milan Rane

Miami chose not to spend money as a promoted team, which is understandable given the landscape of the league. The draft grade below does not reflect that we felt Miami did a good job in this draft. Mya Bui was probably our favorite of the unknown women and we posted the sentiment on X after the pick was made. Anna Bright replied with “good pick” and it’s interesting that two people with a proven track record of identifying talent seem in on Bui. Bui’s results have been trending up and she has the kind of power you can’t teach. Still, it’s going to take her some time to compete in Premier and this female duo is likely going to struggle in a lot of its matchups. 

Jay Devilliers is an awkward fit, presumably on the right, with Eric Oncins. Nevertheless. Devilliers provides legitimate top 25 level men’s play and he can play a big mixed to help bring a baseline level of competitiveness to this team. The problem for Miami is that it was going to be hard to be competitive without spending any money on a female as Bui will presumably need more time, even if she is good. 

Yuta Funemizu is a former soft tennis champion and has been full-time in the US for the last little while. He’s an intriguing upside guy. Ava Ignatowich is a draft pick at #50. 

Grade: C+

Orlando Squeeze 

Samantha Parker (#18, 30,000); Tom Evans (#35, 7,500); Alli Phillips (#36, 7,500) 

Other Rostered Players: Federico Staksrud, Dylan Frazier, Lacy Schneemann 

Orlando is the most curious team in Premier. They are spending legitimate money on 3 players that can compete with the best teams in MLP, but they didn’t want to spend an extra 50K to 80K to ensure they could remain competitive. Remember, the family that owns the Squeeze also owns the Orlando Magic. 

We kind of like Sam Parker as a swing on the unknown females, but the results haven’t really been there in doubles or singles after a couple of splashy singles results in 2024. Vivienne David went for 80,000 and we know that didn’t work out last year for Orlando, but it’s hard to believe that this situation is going to be close to comparable with Parker. 

Tom Evans is a pick to monitor as we have heard some very positive things about the upside. Evans may be a candidate to be stolen during the waiver period and is unlikely to provide much use to this Orlando team on the bench. There will be a handful of teams that don’t like their male bench spot. Alli Phillips was a capable enough lower end Challenger female in 2024 and it’s quite possible she ends up playing some matches in 2025. 

Grade: C

Carolina Pickleball Club 

Tammy Emmrich (#22, 10,000); Liz Truluck (#52, 1,000); Brandon French (#54, 1,000)

Other Rostered Players: Ben Johns, Collin Johns, Kaitlyn Christian 

Tom Dundon really doesn’t care about MLP, does he? It is bad for the league that Dundon insists on keeping Ben on his roster, but refuses to spend any extra money to put a competitive roster together for him. It was way better for MLP when Ben was winning titles in 2023 rather than whatever the hell is going on here in Carolina. 

Don’t tell Kaitlyn Kerr this, but Tammy Emmrich was a solid, middle of the road challenger level player in 2024 and is actually decent value for Carolina for the minimum 10,000. Emmrich is undoubtedly a 2025 Premier level female. The issue is that Emmrich is a significant downgrade from Jessie Irvine or Brooke Buckner. If you thought Ben Johns wasn’t engaged in 2024, is it possible we see something closer to his embarrassing bronze medal performance in Mesa? 

Top 3 life move for Brandon French has to be becoming friends with Tom Dundon.

Grade: C

SoCal Hard Eights 

Ivan Jakovljevic (#23, 10,000), Ryan Fu (#24, 10,000), Blaine Hovenier (#30, 10,000); Lauren Hidalgo Smith (#55, 1,000) 

Other Rostered Players: Irina Tereschenko, Judit Castillo 

If you asked us to pick a last place team at the end of the season, the Hard Eights might be the odds-on favorites along with the Hustlers. They spent $31,000 on their four roster players, which is $9,000 more than the minimum they had to spend in this draft. It is unfortunate to see a franchise that was previously one of the more invested teams in MLP take such a huge step back in 2025, but the league structure put these promoted teams so far behind the eight ball from a competitiveness standpoint.  As an early entry into MLP back in 2022, SoCal does not bring the cash flow that some of these other ownership groups do.

As far as lefties go, it’s odd to us that Martin Emmrich went undrafted in Premier and Challenger. It probably doesn’t matter as Jakovljevic is fine but brings little to no upside. Ryan Fu might bring some upside. We don’t think Hovenier brings much upside. We don’t know anything about Lauren Hidalgo Smith other than going through some results on DUPR as a recent UPA signed player. 

Is this even a middle of the pack Challenger roster? 

Grade: D 

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