The Major League Pickleball free-agency draft is scheduled for Friday at 10 a.m. ET.

All teams made their keeper selections earlier this month, and there are now 66 open roster spots to fill during the draft. The order will be determined by a bidding process similar to past years.

- The initial 28 picks of the draft will be dedicated to filling the first two female and first two male roster slots on teams that did not keep at least two of each (16 female / 12 male to be selected).

- The final 38 picks will be used toward open 5th and 6th roster slots (18 female / 20 male to be selected).

Following the draft: Trade Window #2 will open on Monday, March 2, at 10 a.m. ET.

New this season, teams can use all six players on their roster in a match. That means we will likely see teams use their picks for their 5th/6th players to draft "singles specialists." We also could see instances where one player only plays men's doubles and not mixed doubles, or other flexible roster configurations.

Below is a ranking of who I believe to be the top 10 best available men and women in the draft, and other players who are likely to be drafted. Beyond the top players, which are pretty obvious, the likely draft order gets a bit murky because different teams have different needs. Some teams will be looking for veterans who can help them win now, while others will be trying to grab younger, up-and-coming players who they can build around in the future.

Top available women

1. Anna Bright -- I fully expect the St. Louis Shock to try to get her back, but they will likely be bidding against Dallas, Columbus, New Jersey and Texas (and potentially other wild-card teams).

2. Jorja Johnson -- Dallas is in basically the same position as St. Louis. They will want Johnson back, but they will have competition in the bidding from the same teams listed above.

3. Meghan Dizon -- Last year for the New Jersey 5s, Dizon went 29-3 with Anna Leigh Waters in women's doubles and 7-6 with Noe Khlif in mixed (who joined the 5s at the trade deadline). If New Jersey isn't able to land one of the top two players, I expect them to try to get Dizon back. She is arguably more valuable now with the new lineup rules, because she wouldn't have to play singles, which she rarely plays on the PPA Tour.

4. Lea Jansen -- Jansen and the next two players on this list all fall in the 15-20 range in both women's doubles and mixed doubles on the PPA Tour. I give Jansen the edge for two reasons: She proved last season that she can help a team win a championship, and she's a top 5 singles player.

5. Mari Humberg -- After playing in Challenger for the first part of the 2025 season and finishing as a bench player for New Jersey, I fully expect Humberg to be a starter for somebody this season. She has consistently finished in the Round of 16 or better in women's doubles and mixed doubles so far in 2026, and is coming off of a huge upset over Kaitlyn Christian in singles.

6. Callie Smith -- She had losing records in mixed doubles and women's doubles last season on the Chicago Slice, but has made two quarterfinals appearances (with Jansen) in women's doubles so far this season. She’d be a very solid No. 2 women’s player.

7. Danni-Elle Townsend -- Her next MLP match will be her first, but she has been putting up great results in PPA Tour Asia events over the past year. I could see a team taking her higher than No. 7, but I could also see her falling because she's relatively unknown in the U.S.

8. Judit Castillo -- She picked a great week to have her best women's doubles result in over a year, making the semifinals with Genie Erokhina at the PPA Tour Mesa Cup last weekend. They beat Catherine Parenteau/Rachel Rohrabacher and Chao Yi Wang/Brooke Buckner in the Round of 16 and quarterfinals, respectively. She's also currently the No. 11 ranked women's singles player on the PPA Tour.

9. Genie Erokhina -- She's coming off of the aforementioned deep run in women's doubles at the PPA Tour Mesa Cup, and she has made the Round of 16 on two other occasions in 2026. That's better than any of the other women's players on the draft board, but it's around this point in the draft where I could definitely see teams taking a chance on new talent over an established player like Erokhina.

10. Cailyn Campbell -- She was viewed as a rising star in MLP last year, and while she's definitely talented, her results on the PPA Tour have been just OK. She's made it to the Round of 16 once in women's doubles and once in mixed doubles in 2026 -- and she's had pretty good partners (Riley Newman in four events in mixed and Tina Pisnik in one event).

Other women likely to be drafted: Kiora Kunimoto, Jalina Ingram, Ting Chieh Wei, Sahra Dennehy, Zoey Weil, Elsie Hendershot, Victoria DiMuzio, Emma Nelson, Lina Padegimaite, Christa Gecheva, Alex Walker, 

Singles specialists: Genie Bouchard

Top available men

1. Dylan Frazier -- He's currently No. 10 in the world in men's doubles, No. 11 in mixed doubles and No. 13 in men's singles on the PPA Tour. I suspect several teams will be going after him, including Palm Beach, Orlando (his previous team), Brooklyn, Utah and potentially others.

2. Tyson McGuffin -- He's close behind Frazier in the men's doubles and mixed doubles rankings on the PPA Tour, but has fallen down to No. 47 in singles. Even so, I still think teams would like their chances with him in Dreambreaker scenarios.

3. Jonathan Truong -- He has quietly been putting together solid doubles results in recent months. He's consistently in the Round of 16 in men's doubles and mixed doubles in U.S. PPA Tour events and also picked up a couple golds in PPA Tour Asia events last fall.

4. Jack Sock -- Don't look now, but Sock has already made four quarterfinal or better  appearances across all divisions in just two PPA Tour events in 2026. He had a good run with Pablo Tellez in men's doubles at the Masters and also earned a silver in singles in that event. At the Mesa Cup last weekend, he and Lacy Schneemann made the quarterfinals in mixed doubles and took down JW and Jorja Johnson on their way. He's always been extremely talented in singles, and now the doubles results seem to be coming around. He suffered a hamstring injury at the Masters, but his showing in Mesa indicates that he's back to full strength, or at least close.

5. Tyler Loong -- He and Connor Garnett were 16-12 in men's doubles last season. That's pretty good, but his mixed doubles results are usually worse. With the new lineup rules, maybe he's a player who only plays men's doubles in MLP moving forward? Then the question is whether a team is willing to draft him high just to play one division.

6. Rafa Hewett -- He's another player who is a lot stronger in men's doubles than he is in mixed doubles. But both he and Loong -- being lefties -- could be appealing if a team already has a women's player who wants to play the left side.

7. AJ Koller -- Koller was criminally overlooked in MLP last year and ended up being a sub for many different teams -- often with good results. I don't think he will be slept on like he was in last year's draft.

8. Tama Shimabukuro -- He's arguably the most hyped up-and-comer in the draft, and he's coming off a quarterfinal appearance in men's doubles two weeks ago at the Cape Coral Open (he and Yuta Funemizu defeated Tyson McGuffin/Max Freeman in the Round of 32 and then beat Collin Johns/Jaume Martinez Vich in the Round of 16). But he's another player who doesn't have much mixed success to speak of.

9. Camden Chaffin -- He made a huge run in singles at the Indoor National Championships in January, taking down Federico Staksrud and losing an extremely close match against Chris Haworth. But those close to him have told me they're even higher on his doubles game. I think several teams will be betting on the upside with Chaffin.

10. Armaan Bhatia -- He's made it to the Round of 16 in men's doubles in three out of four tournaments this year. But he's another player whose mixed results are suspect.

Other men likely to be drafted: Marshall Brown, Anderson Scarpa, Will MacKinnon, Wyatt Stone, Zane Ford, Tom Protzek, Martin Emmrich, Greg Dow, Juan Benitez.

Singles specialists: Chris Haworth, Donald Young, John Lucian Goins, Alex Crum, Rafa Lenhard, Matthew Barlow, Aanik Lohani, Adam Harvey, Gabriel Joseph, Mota Alhouni.