Major League Pickleball 2026 Week 8 Power Rankings: Dallas surges, LA stumbles
A month ago the Dallas Flash were facing a nightmare scenario. They’d gone 1-4 at MLP Austin, left town with zero standings points and were at risk of missing the playoffs altogether. It was starting to look like a lost season.
Then they got busy in the trade market, first moving Tyra Black to Columbus in exchange for Danni-Elle Townsend, then getting Alix Truong from the Phoenix Flames.
They’ve steadily improved in the weeks since and this weekend completed the turnaround, going 5-0 and winning their first event of the season at MLP San Diego. Dallas took down two of the Top 5 teams in the league in the process — defeating the Los Angeles Mad Drops in Group Play on Saturday and then beating the Columbus Sliders 3-1 in Sunday’s final.
Townsend and Truong seem to have injected new life into the team, and Dallas is now 12-4 since making the trades. While the new women’s lineup has been decent (they are 8-8 as Flash teammates), it’s been the original Flash men’s players who have found a groove lately.
JW Johnson and Augie Ge were 8-6 in their first 14 games this year, when Dallas was struggling to put matches in the win column. That pair is 9-2 since, with convincing wins this weekend over LA’s Ben Johns/Max Freeman and Columbus’ Andrei Daescu/CJ Klinger.
Ge has also paired extremely well with Townsend — those two are 11-2 since Townsend joined the Flash.
“It’s a good start for us to go in the playoffs, and we were able to show everybody who we are,” Flash owner Mark Molthan said after the match.
Sunday’s final was a disappointing finish to what was otherwise a very good event for Columbus. The Sliders were 5-0 in Group Play and didn’t drop a single game in those matches, but they ultimately couldn’t get their first event win of the season.
While Columbus was cruising through Group B, the Los Angeles Mad Drops struggled in Group A.
The Mad Drops came into the week having made the final in all three of their regular season events (one win and two seconds), but settled for fifth place this week after being upset in Group Play by Atlanta and Dallas.
LA has done enough at this point to essentially guarantee a Top 5 seed in the playoffs, but compared to the teams ahead of them in the standings — St. Louis, New Jersey and Columbus — the Mad Drops look like they’re sputtering heading into the late stages of the season.
Worth noting: The trade deadline is Monday at noon ET. We’ll be tracking any moves as they happen in our trade tracker.
Here’s a look at where things stand across the league after Week 8:
Major League Pickleball San Diego Results
Major League Pickleball Week 8 Standings
Major League Pickleball Week 8 Power Rankings
1. St. Louis Shock ↔️
Record: 24-2
Roster: Hayden Patriquin, Gabe Tardio, Hunter Johnson, Anna Bright, Kate Fahey, Angie Walker.
The Shock had the week off after winning the Mid-Season Tournament last week. They are riding a 15-match winning streak and have beaten most of the main contenders during that stretch: New Jersey, Los Angeles (3 times), Columbus, Palm Beach (twice) and Texas (twice).
They haven’t played Brooklyn or Dallas yet this season, but their most recent win over New Jersey in the Mid-Season Tournament final makes the Shock the favorites coming down the stretch.
St. Louis could play New Jersey one more time in the regular season if both make the final of MLP Orlando, which is the last event before the playoffs.
2. New Jersey 5s ↔️
Record: 22-4
Roster: Will Howells, Noe Khlif, Martin Emmrich, Anna Leigh Waters, Jorja Johnson, Lina Padegimaite.
This team is built on the strength of its women, so when the women don’t win (like what happened at the Mid-Season Tournament against St. Louis), it puts them in a really tough spot. And the Shock might have showed the rest of the league the blueprint for beating Waters/Johnson in Grand Rapids — they did it by funneling most of the shots to Johnson, who didn’t have her best game in that final.
I’m not ready to hit the panic button on this team, though. I still think they can win the title this year because their women will be favored in every match and they have two very strong mixed lineups — Khlif/Waters are 23-3 and Howells/Johnson are 15-6. They are also a pretty strong Dreambreaker team, with a 2-1 record in singles tiebreakers (although the one Dreambreaker loss was to St. Louis).
3. Dallas Flash 📈
Roster: JW Johnson, Augie Ge, Ivan Jakovljevic, Danni-Elle Townsend, Alix Truong, Brooke Buckner.
Record: 16-10
They went 5-0 this week and beat both of the teams I have right behind them in my rankings — Columbus and LA.
And they seem to still be getting better after making multiple trades in the past few weeks. Augie Ge in particular has been a big part of Dallas’ recent success, putting up great results in both doubles events.
Johnson/Ge: 8-2 in their past 10 games
Townsend/Ge: 8-2 in their past 10 games
4. Columbus Sliders 📉
Record: 25-8
Roster: Andrei Daescu, CJ Klinger, Alexander Crum, Parris Todd, Tyra Black, Judit Castillo.
The Sliders are one of three teams who have completed all of their regular-season events. They were pretty consistent throughout the year, finishing third or better in 4-of-5 of those events and finishing third at the Mid-Season Tournament. But the fact that they weren’t able to win any of their events makes it hard to feel super confident in their chances of defending their title.
They have arguably the most talented roster in the league — they are the only team with four players in the Top 10 in the PPA Tour rankings — but so far that roster hasn’t looked as dominant on court as they do on paper.
All of that being said, this is essentially the same position Columbus was in heading into the postseason last year, then they found another gear in the playoffs and won the title.
5. Los Angeles Mad Drops 📉
Record: 21-6
Roster: Ben Johns, Max Freeman, Gabriel Joseph, Catherine Parenteau, Jade Kawamoto, Samantha Parker.
In the grand scheme of things, finishing fifth this week isn’t the end of the world for the Mad Drops. They will most likely end up as a No. 3-5 seed in the playoffs, and they are still a very dangerous team when all four starters are playing well.
I only dropped them one spot in my rankings this week because dropping them further would have meant putting Brooklyn at No. 5, and LA is 2-0 against Brooklyn this year.
Even so, it’s not a great sign that the Mad Drops played their best pickleball 2 months ago at this point.
6. Brooklyn Pickleball Team 📉
Record: 15-5
Roster: Christian Alshon, Riley Newman, Chris Haworth, Jackie Kawamoto, Rachel Rohrabacher, Hannah Blatt.
Three of their starters were out the last time we saw them at the Mid-Season Tournament (Alshon, Newman and Rohrabacher), so it’s hard to judge them too harshly for going 1-2 in Grand Rapids.
They will be back in action this coming week at MLP Chicago, and it sounds like everybody could be back in the lineup.
If they can get everybody healthy, I still think they will be a very dangerous team in the playoffs.
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7. Texas Ranchers 📉
Record: 16-12
Roster: Eric Oncins, Nico Acevedo, Rafa Hewett, Lea Jansen, Kaitlyn Christian, Layne Sleeth.
Texas had the week off. It’s hard to see them making a serious run in the playoffs based on what we’ve seen so far — they have recent regulation losses to St. Louis and Columbus. I’m putting them firmly in the “Good but not great” category.
8. Palm Beach Royals ↔️
Record: 14-12
Roster: Dekel Bar, Tyson McGuffin, Casey Diamond, Grayson Goldin (IR), Tina Pisnik, Sofia Sewing, Tamaryn Emmrich.
Pisnik/Sewing continue to be one of the best women’s doubles teams in the league (they are 22-4), but Bar/McGuffin have struggled in men’s doubles (they are 7-9).
If they can put it all together, they could be dangerous in the playoffs, but as of now I view them similar to Texas — good but not great.
9. Atlanta Bouncers 📈
Record: 12-15
Roster: Jay Devilliers, Jaume Martinez Vich, Donald Young, Jessie Irvine, Kaitlyn Christian, Keilly Ulery.
The Bouncers are trending in the right direction, finishing third this week in a fairly strong field. The 15 standings points they earned in San Diego pretty much guarantees them a spot in the playoffs, but consistency is still an issue.
This week they had a win over Los Angeles (great), but lost to Utah in their next match (not great).
10. SoCal Hard Eights ↔️
Record: 13-13
Roster: Armaan Bhatia, Will MacKinnon, Rafael Lenhard, Meghan Dizon, Cailyn Campbell, Naomi Nguyen.
Like Dallas, they have overcome a poor start to the season and are now comfortably inside the playoff bubble. But I don’t have high hopes for them once they get to the postseason.
11. Orlando Squeeze 📉
Record: 13-11
Roster: Federico Staksrud, Jack Sock, Yates Johnson, Lacy Schneemann, Milan Rane, Alex Walker.
They’re doing just enough to stay in the playoff picture, but finishing 7th in San Diego is an underwhelming result.
12. Las Vegas Night Owls 📈
Record: 7-12
Roster: Roscoe Bellamy, Clayton Powell, Braden Jacobson, Callie Smith, Chao Yi Wang, Liz Truluck.
They are still in decent shape to make the playoffs, but it’s been a few weeks since they’ve played particularly well — they are 3-7 in their last 10 matches. The only reason I’m moving them up one spot this week is because I bumped Phoenix down.
13. California Black Bears 📈
Record: 7-12
Roster: Pablo Tellez, Dylan Frazier, Joey Wild, Sahra Dennehy, Zoey Weil, Jalina Ingram, Luka Mack (IR).
They made recent trades to get Pablo Tellez and Dylan Frazier, but Frazier didn’t play this week in San Diego. The Black Bears still went 3-3 and earned 8 standings points, but will need solid results in each of their last two events to make the postseason.
14. Utah Black Diamonds ↔️
Record: 10-16
Roster: Connor Garnett, Tama Shimabukuro, Yuta Funemizu, Allyce Jones, Etta Tuionetoa, Victoria DiMuzio.
They did beat Atlanta this week, but still finished last in their group and only earned 1 standings point. Right now they are the last team out of the playoffs, with only one event remaining — it will need to be a very good one.
15. Chicago Slice ↔️
Record: 7-12
Roster: John Lucian Goins, Zane Navratil, AJ Koller, Elsie Hendershot, Jamie Wei, Emma Nelson.
Chicago appears to be building for the future, making multiple trades recently to pick up Goins (18 years old), Hendershot (13) and Nelson (15).
In the short term, their hopes of making the playoffs this season have taken a hit. In the long term, this could be an interesting team.
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16. Miami Pickleball Club ↔️
Record: 6-13
Roster: Anouar Braham, Tyler Loong, Zane Ford, Isabella Dunlap, Estee Widdershoven, Rika Fujiwara.
Their playoff hopes are fading, but they’re not dead yet.
17. Phoenix Flames 📉
Record: 4-14
Roster: Jonathan Truong, Wyatt Stone, Camden Chaffin, Albie Huang, Alexa Schull, Daria Walczak.
They went 1-4 this week despite playing some of the lower-tier teams in the league — they had losses to Orlando, SoCal and California (all in Dreambreakers) and walked away from San Diego with only 1 standings point.
The Flames haven’t technically been eliminated from playoff contention, but it’s looking bleak.
18. Carolina Hogs ↔️
Record: 2-18
Roster: DJ Young, Brandon French, Michael Loyd, Nicole Conard, Aiko Yoshitomi, Abbigal Hatton.
They are not yet mathematically eliminated from playoff contention, but I feel comfortable writing them off.
Eliminated from playoff contention
Florida Smash
Bay Area Breakers
