The Major League Pickleball season continues Thursday at MLP St. Petersburg, where 11 teams will be in action across five days at St. Pete Athletic. 

The first four days feature Group Play before the top 4 teams from each group advance to the Standing Point Matches on Super Sunday, with every match taking place on Championship Court. 

Here are the groups for this week’s event:  

Group A: Brooklyn Pickleball Team, Chicago Slice, Florida Smash, Los Angeles Mad Drops, Utah Black Diamonds  

Group B: Columbus Sliders, Miami Pickleball Club, Orlando Squeeze, Palm Beach Royals, St. Louis Shock, Texas Ranchers  

Here is the order of play: 

Now, let’s get into what to watch for. 

• Riley Newman is set to return to action for the Brooklyn Pickleball team after missing time with a left foot injury at MLP St. Louis. He will regain his starting role next to Christian Alshon in men’s doubles and Jackie Kawamoto in mixed doubles as Brooklyn faces the Florida Smash in the first match of the day on Championship. Court. Chris Haworth, who went 4-3 when filling in for Newman in St. Louis, will return to his ‘singles specialist’ duties for the time being.

• The Los Angeles Mad Drops and Utah Black Diamonds will face off for the third time this season on Thursday. The Mad Drops have won both meetings by a 3-1 score line, although they lost different games each time; they lost men’s doubles when they played in Dallas and women’s doubles when they played in St. Louis. Utah will be looking to win its first mixed doubles game against LA’s pairings of Catherine Parenteau/Max Freeman and Jade Kawamoto/Ben Johns when they play on Thursday.

• One of the day’s most intriguing matches features the Orlando Squeeze taking on the Texas Ranchers in the first meeting between the two teams. This is a must-win for Texas after falling to the Palm Beach Royals and St. Louis Shock on Wednesday, so they should be highly motivated to get in the win column for the first time in St. Pete. Each doubles game could truly go either way, so this contest should be a highly competitive bout with high DreamBreaker potential.

Action from St. Pete Athletic begins at 11am ET on Pickleballtv.