Major League Pickleball Finals live updates: Columbus, New Jersey start strong on Day 1

Alex Lantz

Director of Content

Last Edited

Aug 22 2025

Major League Pickleball Finals match schedule

Multiple matches will be broadcast on CBS Sports Network, as well as a CBS national broadcast on Saturday afternoon. There also are some matches available on MSG Network and Tennis Channel, in addition to Pickleballtv and the Pickleballtv App.

Major League Pickleball Premier Level Semifinals

No. 1 St. Louis Shock vs. No. 5 Columbus Sliders

How they got here: St. Louis took care of business in the quarterfinals with a 2-0 sweep of Orlando, while Columbus pulled off an upset over the No. 2 seed Dallas Flash.

Video: How Columbus pulled off big upset in Major League Pickleball playoffs

Match 1: Columbus dominated from start to finish to kick off this series, sweeping the Shock 3-0 (scorelines: 11-7, 11-8, 11-5). St. Louis looked flat throughout the match and struggled to find much energy, while Columbus seems to be riding a huge wave of momentum after their big win over Dallas last weekend.

"We have an us-against-the-world mentality," Lea Jansen said after the win. "We have the benefit of winning a really tough series, so we feel like we're really battle tested right now."

Jansen and Parris Todd set the tone in women's doubles, taking down Anna Bright and Kate Fahey to get the Sliders off to a strong start, then Andrei Daescu continued his great play alongside CJ Klinger. They beat a Hayden Patriquin/Gabe Tardio duo that had only lost twice all season heading into Friday's match, then Daescu/Todd closed it out in mixed.

One thing to watch in this series going forward: They're playing on temporary courts in Central Park, which typically means the ball doesn't bounce as high. That makes it tough to attack off the bounce, and Patriquin and Tardio are both players who rely on those shots to generate offense -- whereas Daescu and Klinger use their length to attack much more often out of the air. So even though Patriquin/Tardio were the better team in the regular season by a significant margin, the conditions this weekend might actually be favoring the Columbus men in this series.

Match 2 will be Friday afternoon.

No. 3 New Jersey 5s vs. No. 6 Los Angeles Mad Drops

How they got here: Both teams looked pretty strong in the quarterfinals. New Jersey earned a 2-0 sweep over Texas, although one of those matches went to a Dreambreaker, while Los Angeles beat a solid Brooklyn team handily in route to a 2-0 sweep.

Match 1: Much like Columbus, the New Jersey 5s came out with great energy and started strong in women's doubles -- with Anna Leigh Waters/Meghan Dizon cruising to an 11-3 win over Jade Kawamoto/Catherine Parenteau. They've now won their past 19 women's doubles games and haven't lost since May 25.

But where things really got dicey for LA was in men's doubles.

In the meeting on July 26 between these teams, Los Angeles forced a Dreambreaker by winning men's doubles and the second mixed doubles game. On Friday, Ben Johns/Hunter Johnson had a good chance to tie things up heading to mixed, but squandered two game points against Will Howells/Noe Khlif. Ultimately New Jersey came back to win that one, and then Howells/Waters closed the match out in mixed with an 11-2 win over Johns/Parenteau.

That might seem like a surprising score in the first mixed game, but it was a pretty similar game to the one on July 26, when Howells/Waters won 11-4 over Johns/Parenteau.

Heading into Match 2, it's looking like LA's best chance is to get a win in men's doubles and then hope to split mixed and win in a Dreambreaker. Even though New Jersey has already beaten LA twice in Dreambreakers this year, I still think the Mad Drops have the better singles lineup on paper. In matches this season where LA had all four starters -- including Quang Duong before he was booted from the league -- the Mad Drops were 6-1 in Dreambreakers.

Major League Pickleball Challenger Level finals

No. 1 Las Vegas Night Owls vs. No. 2 Nashville Chefs

How they got here: Las Vegas and Nashville -- The Kitchen's MLP team -- have been No. 1 and No. 2 throughout the season. Las Vegas swept the Bay Area Breakers 2-0 in the semifinals, while Nashville also got 2-0 a sweep over the California Black Bears.

Season series: Las Vegas leads 5-1, but only one of those matches has been played since Nashville made a trade late in the season for Genie Erokhina, who replaced Michelle Esquivel in the lineup. In that meeting on July 31, the Night Owls won 21-16 in a Dreambreaker.

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