St. Louis Shock Win MLP St. Petersburg, Stay Undefeated in Last Two Events
Week five of the 2026 Major League Pickleball season is officially done, and if you blinked you might have missed just how dominant one team has been. We are now past the halfway point of the regular season, and the storylines are getting sharper, the stakes are getting higher, and the St. Louis Shock are quietly putting together one of the more impressive runs we have seen in recent MLP history.
Before we get into the results, it is worth noting what made this particular event stand out from the rest of the 2026 season. MLP St. Petersburg was held at St. Pete Athletic, a facility co-founded by Graham D’Amico, who also happens to be an owner of the Florida Smash, alongside Reuben Pressman. This was the first time this venue hosted an MLP event, which gave the whole weekend a fresh energy that you do not always get at recurring stops on the tour.
Even more unusual, this was the first MLP event in roughly two and a half years to feature only a Championship Court, with no Grandstand Court running simultaneously. That meant every single match was played on one court, one at a time, and play had to begin on Wednesday just to fit all 29 matches into the schedule. The effect of that format shift was actually pretty compelling. Every match carried a little extra weight. There was no split attention, no background noise from an adjacent court. You were locked in on whatever was happening in front of you, and that made for a more focused and elevated viewing experience from start to finish.
What Is MLP and How Does It Work? A Quick Breakdown for New Fans
If you are newer to the world of professional pickleball, Major League Pickleball is the top team-based professional pickleball league in the United States. Teams are made up of four players — two men and two women — and they compete in a format that includes women’s doubles, men’s doubles, and mixed doubles matches. Teams earn points across events throughout the season, and those standings determine which teams qualify for the postseason playoffs and ultimately the championship.
Each event spans several days. Pool play happens first, where teams in a given group play round-robin style matches to determine seeding. Then on the final day, referred to as Super Sunday, teams play elimination or placement matches to settle the final standings for that event. Points earned at each event accumulate across the season, so consistency matters just as much as winning any single event. A team that finishes third or fourth every weekend can end up in better playoff position than a team that wins one event and falls apart the next.
Rosters are managed through a waiver and trade system, similar to what you would see in other professional sports leagues. Teams can add, drop, or trade players between events, which adds an additional strategic layer to the season that goes beyond what happens on the court. Alternates can also be called upon when players are injured or unavailable, and those decisions can shape the outcome of an entire event.
Understanding that framework makes everything that happened in St. Petersburg a lot more meaningful, because the decisions made off the court were just as interesting as what happened during play.
The St. Louis Shock Are on a Different Level Right Now
Let’s be direct about what the St. Louis Shock are doing. After losing the MLP Columbus championship match to the New Jersey Fives back on May 31st — a 3-0 defeat that was about as clean as a championship loss can be — the Shock have responded with something genuinely remarkable.
In the two events since that loss, MLP St. Louis and MLP St. Petersburg, the Shock earned the number one seed into Championship Sunday both times. In both finals, they faced the LA Mad Drops and won 3-0 on both occasions. The margin of victory was not close either time. In St. Petersburg, the Shock beat the Mad Drops by a combined score of 33-15. Two weeks earlier in St. Louis, the scoreline was 33-9. Those are not just wins — those are statements.
Zooming out further, since the loss to the Fives in late May, the Shock have gone a perfect 11-0 in matches, with a games record of 38-4 across 42 total games played. Four losses out of 42 games. Let that sink in for a moment. To put the roster quality in context, all four of the Shock starters currently rank inside the top six overall player rankings for the 2026 MLP season.
The question that lingers around this team is not whether they can dominate regular season play — clearly they can. The real question is whether they can carry that level of play into the postseason, where the stakes are higher, opponents are better prepared, and the margin for error shrinks considerably. They have had playoff struggles in the past, and that history is the one thing standing between this run feeling dominant versus feeling historically significant. Everything they are doing right now is building toward that test.
Palm Beach Royals: Navigating a Weekend of Chaos and Still Coming Out Ahead
On the surface, walking away from a weekend with 12 standings points might not sound like a massive achievement. But for the Palm Beach Royals in St. Petersburg, the circumstances made those 12 points feel like a small miracle.
Over the course of the weekend, the Royals dealt with Dekel Bar leaving the event after day one with an injury, Tyson McGuffin suffering what looked like a serious ankle roll, and Grayson Goldin being listed as ill and unavailable. That is essentially three of your four starters either injured or out of commission at various points. For most teams, that kind of chaos would mean losing every match and going home with nothing.
What saved the Royals was the timing of Casey Diamond’s signing with the UPA on June 17th, which made him available as a second on-site alternate alongside Stefan Auvergne. This was also notable because it marked the first time in 2026 that a team had two on-site alternates of the same gender available. Prior to this event, each team was only permitted one alternate per gender, so Diamond’s availability represented a new wrinkle in how roster flexibility can work in MLP.
With their second seed in pool play already locked up on Saturday, the Royals made the smart call to sit all three of their starting men and let Diamond and Auvergne handle the matches. It was a calculated rest decision that preserved McGuffin for Sunday. That decision paid off, as McGuffin returned to the lineup for Super Sunday, though the Royals ultimately fell to Brooklyn 3-1 and finished fourth in the event.
Casey Diamond, in his first MLP event ever, went 2-5 across seven games. His two wins came alongside his longtime APP Tour partner Sofia Sewing, and they arrived at moments that genuinely mattered for Palm Beach’s position in the bracket. Beyond the wins, Diamond also landed on the SportsCenter Top 10 not once but twice during the weekend, including a behind-the-back winner that is already making the rounds as one of the best pro pickleball shots of the year. The immediate question now is whether Palm Beach uses the upcoming waiver period to make Diamond a permanent part of the roster, and if so, which player gets dropped to make room.
The Florida Smash: Heart, Growth, and a Crowd That Showed Up
The Florida Smash did not win a single match during their home event. On paper, that reads like a failed weekend. In reality, it was one of the more emotionally compelling storylines of the entire 2026 season so far.
The moment that stood out most had nothing to do with a shot or a scoreline. Travis Rettenmaier broke down with genuine emotion during a post-match interview, visibly moved by the St. Pete crowd continuing to cheer the Smash even in defeat. That kind of connection between a team and a local fan base does not happen overnight, and watching Rettenmaier feel that support in real time was a reminder of why the live event experience in pickleball is worth paying attention to.
On the court, the Smash women’s doubles pairing of Zoey Weil and Martina Frantova sits at 7-7 on the season. Among all women’s doubles pairings with at least eight games together, they rank seventh in winning percentage. That is a far cry from the narrative that they are the weakest women’s doubles team in the league. Chris Crouch and Cason Campbell continue to develop, and while Florida is not a playoff team this year, what they are building on the roster — a core of younger, exciting players with room to grow — is a legitimate foundation for the future.
Pool Play Recap: Who Is Rising, Who Is Falling, and Who Has Decisions to Make
The Brooklyn Pickleball Team had a strong event overall, finishing third and earning 15 standings points. Rachel Rohrabacher essentially played in her backyard, training near the venue regularly, and she competed through what appeared to be a significant leg issue based on the visible wrapping she wore throughout the weekend. Riley Newman, who had been dealing with an injury from the previous event, showed no signs of limitation in St. Pete. Brooklyn looks like a legitimate top six team, but most observers agree they are still one piece short of being a real championship contender.
The Chicago Slice had a quiet and somewhat forgettable weekend, going 2-2 in pool play before dropping a 3-0 decision to the Columbus Sliders in the Super Sunday 3v3 matchup. Their roster move of dropping Tom Protzek for AJ Koller raised eyebrows when Koller did not see any court time in St. Pete. Chicago is currently sitting ninth in points per event, which is good enough to be a playoff team, but the gap between them and the top tier feels significant without roster changes.
The Utah Black Diamonds went 1-3, with their only victory coming against the Florida Smash. Their season-long records for both doubles pairings hover right around the .500 mark, and Utah will likely finish somewhere in the 11th to 14th range in standings, putting them right at the playoff bubble. If they do make it, no top team is losing sleep over a potential matchup with them.
The Columbus Sliders went 3-2 in pool play and then closed the event with the 3v3 Super Sunday win over Chicago. Newly acquired Tyra Black and Parris Todd, both of whom could not play at MLP Austin less than three days earlier due to illness, somehow made full recoveries and went 4-2 together in St. Pete. Their presence clearly elevated Columbus, and the Sliders look like a legitimate contender to reach the NYC Semifinals in August.
The Texas Ranchers left St. Pete looking more banged up than when they arrived. Layne Sleeth was spotted in a sling on her right shoulder, Nico Acevedo missed mixed doubles due to an apparent injury, and the team took home only four standings points after losing in the seventh place match. With MLP NYC coming up in just three days, the Ranchers need answers fast if they want to stay relevant in the playoff picture.
The Orlando Squeeze continue to deal with a brutal strength of schedule, and while the losses are piling up, the roster has some quality in it. Jack Sock and Federico Staksrud are 9-6 on the year, which is respectable. But with only one point out of St. Pete, Orlando sits 11th in points per event. The real question swirling around this team is whether they start thinking about the 2027 draft and trade Federico Staksrud for cash before the trade deadline closes.
The Miami Pickleball Club went 0-5 in a brutally difficult pool, winning just three games out of 20 played. They dropped four spots in the standings, sliding from 12th to 16th. After acquiring Dylan Frazier in exchange for Nico Acevedo, the question already being asked around the league is whether Miami flips Frazier for additional assets before the trade deadline hits next week. When a team is starting to think about trades before the event is even fully behind them, that tells you where they stand in terms of 2026 expectations.
Looking Ahead to MLP NYC
The next stop on the 2026 MLP calendar is New York City, with the event scheduled to begin Thursday at SPORTIME Randall’s Island. After the intimacy and focused atmosphere of the one-court setup in St. Pete, returning to a more traditional multi-court format will be a shift for both players and fans following along.
The Shock will be the team everyone is watching. Can they make it three straight event wins and continue their remarkable 11-0 run? Can the Royals stay healthy long enough to actually compete? Will the Ranchers and Sliders show up to NYC in one piece? There are a lot of open questions heading into the back half of the regular season, and the standings are tightening in ways that will make every match from here on out carry real consequences for playoff positioning.
For anyone who has been sleeping on professional pickleball, this is a good moment to start paying attention. The product on the court is getting better, the storylines off the court are genuinely compelling, and we are entering the stretch of the season where every point matters.
