MLP Columbus 2025 – 5 Takeaways – Can Anyone Catch the Flash and the Shock?
It has been a fascinating start to the MLP season as the first two weekends were overshadowed by incidents involving the sports two biggest stars. The Anna Leigh Waters-Hayden Patriquin big B word situation seems like eons ago and so insignificant compared to what ol’ Benny Boy did in Columbus. Despite the overshadowing storylines, we have had some really good play on the court, and we have seen some minor surprises in the performance of certain teams.
One cool thing that MLP has implemented for the 2025 season has been their Saturday and Sunday Night Pickleball theme. All of the major sports have certain evenings of the week during the regular season where fans know there will be more important games happening – NFL is Sunday (as well as Monday and Thursday, and sometimes Friday and Saturday…), NBA is Thursday, MLB is Sunday and NHL is Saturday. For the non-sickos who don’t want to spend 4 straight days watching team-based pro pickleball, it’s good for them to know when they can tune in to find some really fun pickleball to watch.
A lot of our focus has been on the non-playing aspect of MLP the past couple of weeks so let’s make the primary focus of these takeaways about the play on the court.
1. Can Anyone Catch the Flash and the Shock? – It is not a big shocker (ha!) to see the Flash and the Shock as the two best teams to start out the year. They are the only two teams from the 2024 season to run back their full rosters. Dallas won a championship, and St. Louis was ousted by Dallas in the semi-finals.
The scary thing that was identified before the season is that the players on these two teams are getting better. The women of the Flash are getting some amazing results on tour and that showed at the first event in Orlando. The Shock men have taken a huge leap since the 2024 draft and have become more dynamic than they were by the end of the 2024 season. Anna Bright, the #2 female drafted in 2024, is still improving as the #2 female in 2025. It is frightening that Kate Fahey/Gabe Tardio went 6-0 this past weekend in Columbus, which is more wins than they had all of 2025.
Although both teams did a very good job identifying a 4th pick to round out their roster last year, there looks to be some level of stagnation to the doubles games for both Augie Ge and Kate Fahey. Anna Bright is the heartbeat for the St. Louis squad and somewhat insulates Kate Fahey, whose game is still more of a right-side ball maker. Similarly for Dallas, JW Johnson is an elite partner for Augie Ge, especially when it comes to MLP. That’s not to say Fahey and Ge haven’t improved, but they have not pushed themselves into the upper echelon of gender doubles players. Not yet, at least.
The New Jersey 5’s are the most likely team to shake up the Shock and Flash as some order of #1 and #2 in the league. However, the 5’s lost their lone matchup to the Shock in Orlando and it remains to be seen whether Meghan Dizon is the missing puzzle piece to push the 5’s over the edge.
Texas and Columbus clearly feature strong rosters as well. Texas’s men could be truly elite by MLP standards come playoff time and, if Klinger/Daescu can find some more wins together, the Sliders will be dangerous. Still, it is hard to see how the Ranchers or the Sliders could take a 2 out of 3 series against either the Flash or the Shock. The big thing for both the Flash and the Shock is that they are elite Dreambreaker teams, which provides a nice safety net if things don’t get as planned in regulation.
It’s no secret that Dallas and St. Louis are at the top of the league and it does not appear as though any team will be catching them any time soon.
2. Easy Peasy Orlando Squeezey – The Orlando Squeeze have been a delightful surprise through the first two events of the season. They are sitting in first place in the regular season standings by points and third place in points per match at 2.27. Orlando has already played 11 of their 25 total regular season games through the first two weeks of the season, sitting pretty with a 9-2 overall record.
The Squeeze were always going to be decent by 2025 MLP standards as they featured two top end men’s doubles players in Federico Staksrud and Dylan Frazier as well as one legitimate Premier level, left-side female in Lacy Schneemann. The big question mark after choosing not to spend big money on a female was whether Samantha Parker could hold up at the Premier level and she has answered the call by playing admirably in the first half of the Squeeze season.
The other cool thing that we are seeing is a super engaged Federico Staksrud. It is unclear exactly why Staksrud had basically checked out towards the latter part of the 2024 season, but we are seeing a 180 degree flipped version of him. He is playing hard, coaching hard and cheering hard on the sidelines. It makes the dynamic so much better for this Orlando team that needs Federico as a leader to have any chance in 2025.
It has been a great start to the year for Orlando, but they have also benefitted from a friendly schedule. Their regulation wins have been against SoCal, Utah, LA (with AJ Koller subbing for Hunter Johnson), Carolina (with their sub squad), Columbus (with Roscoe Bellamy in for CJ Klinger) and Atlanta. They had to settle for Dreambreaker wins over Phoenix and Chicago, and their losses have been in regulation to Brooklyn and St. Louis.
In matches against top half teams, Orlando either has wins against teams playing a non-starter (LA and Columbus) or they lost outright in regulation (Brooklyn and St. Louis). There’s something to be said that you can only beat the teams that you play but they have benefitted from a relatively soft schedule along with some substitute player luck.
One of the most enjoyable aspects of MLP is seeing unexpected teams and new players emerge. The Squeeze are undoubtedly a great story early in the season and they will likely be fighting for a top 6 playoff bye at the end of the season. The problem for the Squeeze is that, without more higher end results, there’s nothing to really indicate that they are anything beyond a slightly above average lower end playoff team.
The Austin event at the end of the month features only 5 Premier level teams – Dallas, Texas, New Jersey, Miami and Orlando. That’s a gauntlet of a schedule for Orlando and will be a big test to see how real the Squeeze are.
3. The Vibey Phoenix Flames – We said Charles Darling was a mad scientist putting this Flames roster together. It seems evident that Darling was looking to construct a fun, energetic and vibey group of individuals, but he he was not so concerned with the results. And that’s exactly what this team looks to be two events into the season.
Their former NFL player head coach, Brant Weiss, brings amazing energy and great chirps on his suddenly recognizable clipboard. Tyson McGuffin is bringing an extra level of showmanship to the court. Tyson and Jack Sock look like they are getting along, as Forrest Gump says, like peas and carrots. Jessie Irvine is taking extra court and making things happen in women. Genie Bouchard is…on the court.
While the vibes are great for the Flames, the results have been less encouraging. Jack Sock and Genie Bouchard are an abysmal 0-8 mixed and have identical 3-5 records in gender doubles. The Flames are still treading water because McGuffin/Irvine are 6-2 as the #1 mixed team and that has allowed this team to get to get to 5 Dreambreakers in 8 of its matches.
Phoenix is 2-6 overall with 7 points and zero regulation wins, including a Dreambreaker loss to the NY Hustlers. If you want to take a silver lining from poor results of the team tennis mixed duo, you could say that they can’t be any worse, which is a factually correct statement for them as a mixed team.
If you want to take the other side of the equation, the lack of results fit with the trend of neither Sock or Bouchard seeing much improvement in their doubles results on tour. Even though Sock is getting better results in singles, Bouchard’s singles results have stagnated in 2025 in her singles game.
Bouchard providing basic competence as a pickleball player compared to her early 2024 play might be masking the fact that she is not practicing or seeing significant improvement in her game. Bouchard had a brief uptick in her results towards the end of 2024 when she was spending time travelling and practicing with Ryan Sherry, but we haven’t seen a lot of practice happening in 2025. And the results would back that up.
Sock’s talent remains tantalizing in brief stretches, but he hasn’t been able to sort out the fundamentals to compete consistently at a high level in doubles. Beyond effort and practice, we truly wonder whether there is a mental aspect for pickleball that Sock is missing that leaves him unable to think through the game the way a high-level pro needs to.
As much as Brant Weiss is bringing the energy and vibes to the bench, that is not what the Flames need to get the best out of Sock match in, match out. It may not have been apparent to outside observers, but it felt like a necessity to have Sock’s former tennis coach, Mike Wolf, on the bench with the Hustlers in 2024 to maximize whatever Sock could give the team at each event. With that coaching aspect missing from Sock’s MLP experience this year, it is quite possible the Flames are not getting the most from Sock that they could be getting, limitations and all.
Phoenix is going to be fun to watch, at times, throughout the 2025 season but it is clear they won’t have the horses to run with the big dogs, barring something completely unforeseen from Jack Sock and Genie Bouchard.
4. The Fun Side of the Hogs – Following all of the Ben Johns commotion, we almost had a made for Hollywood moment for the scrap heap version of the Carolina Hogs on Saturday. With the Hogs sending out a team that featured its 4th starter (Tammy Emmrich) and 3 on-site subs (Martin Emmrich, Ross Whittaker and Zoey Weil), they pushed the Chicago Slice to a brink in a Dreambreaker, narrowly missing the feel-good upset win. Somehow, Tammy Emmrich and Zoey Weil were able to win 11-4 over Vivienne David and Callie Smith. And with the match on the line, the husband-wife Emmrich duo were able to out-duel the Slice #1 mixed team of Ignatowich/David to a 14-12 victory to push it to a Dreambreaker.
The Hogs ended up losing 21-19 in a Dreambreaker, but you have to remember that with the new rules MLP implemented post-Orlando for on-site subs, the Hogs started the Dreambreaker down 0-3. They also started their doubles matches down either 0-1 or 0-2.
There’s not a ton to takeaway from this other than this is what makes sports fun. You have a group of people that people expected to get steamrolled and they fought their butts off to make it one of the more compelling matches of the early season. Add in the unique husband-wife dynamic of Martin Emmrich filling in and playing alongside his wife, Tammy, to an unexpected win over a very good mixed team to push it to a Dreambreaker, and you have all the makings of a great storyline amidst a ridiculous amount of chaos.
The other thing the Hogs near dream victory highlighted was a very disappointing weekend for the Slice, who leave the first two events with a paltry 1.00 point per match ratio after 8 regular season games. James Ignatowich has a 6-10 overall record, but it is more troubling that he is 3-5 in mixed with Vivienne David.
Currently, Chicago looks like a team without a #1 anything. Their women’s doubles team is fine as shown by the 4-4 record, but the rest of their pairings have a below .500 winning percentage. This is the danger of spending money on 3 stock down players and 1 upside without results player.
It has also been confusing that the Slice have been sending out James Ignatowich ahead of Max Freeman in their Dreambreakers. In Columbus, Ignatowich went 2-7 (Whittaker), 7-5 (Khlif), 1-11 (Staksrud), and 3-12 (Sock) for an abysmal 13-35 combined Dreambreaker record. Freeman, on the other hand, was 27-14 overall in Dreambreakers. This is the easiest adjustment for the Slice to give themselves a better chance in Dreambreakers as Ignatowich is proving he can’t hang in that #1 slot whereas Freeman has been getting some solid results on tour in singles.
Chicago is still right in the play-in game mix, but they are going to need more from everyone on the team if they want to be more than an easy out in the playoffs.
5. Welcome to Miami – Miami was a bottom end team we were intrigued by prior to the season even though we gave them a C+ draft grade and put them 14th in our pre-season power rankings. For not spending money, we thought Miami did a good job with its picks and they ended up recouping more cash when they traded Eric Oncins for Noe Khlif.
What Devilliers and Khlif provide to Miami is very steady, high-level ball making. They are 6-5 as a men’s team and that’s about all you can ask from them. As a #1 mixed team, Khlif and Rane are holding their own as well as well with a 6-5 record.
The big unknown for this team was Mya Bui, who has been okay overall. She’s 4-7 in with Milan Rane and 5-6 with Jay Devilliers. At this point in time, Bui has enough firepower to mask what look to be major concerns with certain fundamentals of the game, particularly on her forehand side soft stuff. Bui is benefitting from the Devilliers’s ability to take a ton of court in mixed. It is worth noting that Devilliers finally has a better paddle in his hands as he is playing with a JOOLA and that has to help a guy who always could have used a little extra juice to his game.
We’ll be curious to see if Bui can fix the legitimate fundamental issues she has with her game as the season progresses, but the signs are encouraging for Miami that they are sitting in 8th in the league in points per match with the current iteration of their roster.
Ben Johns Update: It is interesting that we are posting this article at approximately 1:45am EST on Wednesday, May 7th, and we still have no update on the Ben Johns situation. The official MLP statement posted on Friday afternoon said that “Any potential disciplinary measures will be shared early next week”. It’s likely that the UPA are still working through their decision but it’s worth mentioning that we are already past early in the week without an announcement.
Ben from Real Clear Stats commented on our recent Ben Johns article and pointed out something we wish we had noted originally. Andrei Daescu was fined $50,000 and suspended for 60 days by the UPA for submitting a paddle for testing with pine tar on it.** If that’s the threshold penalty we have established in MLP, what is the penalty for using a bogus lighting and safety issue reason to quit on your team for an entire event?
One other thing to highlight about this Ben Johns situation is that we have seen 3 people in the pro pickleball world speak out in some kind of defense of Ben’s actions – Dekel Bar, Kaitlyn Kerr and Tina Pisnik. Dekel is Ben’s close friend and business partner with their Pickleball Getaways venture. Kaitlyn Kerr is teaching a Pickleball Getaways camp at this very moment with Dekel Bar. Collin Johns is Tina Pisnik’s coach and the two of them have become good friends. It is very telling that not a single person unaffiliated personally or professionally with the Johns brothers has come out publicly to support the stance they have taken.
*A bunch of the stats used in this article were taken from Erik Tice’s public database that he has shared with everyone as well as from the MLP website.
**This article has been updated to reflect that Daescu’s fine and suspension was by the UPA, not just MLP
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