Major League Pickleball announced the fourth trade of Trade Window #1, which ends on Feb. 15.

This is the first Challenger level trade of the season, involving the California Black Bears and Brooklyn Aces.

Here are the details:

• California acquires Layne Sleeth.
• Brooklyn acquires Amanda Hendry and cash considerations.
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As a reminder, each team must declare its keepers and drop at least one player on Sunday, Feb. 16 at 6pm CT.

Now, onto the details.

Breaking things down

Let’s look at how these trades impact each roster.

California: Brandon French, Chris Haworth, Lina Padegimaite, Layne Sleeth

Before this trade, California was going to have to drop both Haworth and Hendry, since neither one of them has a UPA contract. Now, the Black Bears only have to drop Haworth and can move forward with a core of French, Padegimaite, and Sleeth.

Padegimaite and Sleeth are very familiar with each other, having competed together—on the Brooklyn Aces, funnily enough—for a majority of the 2024 season. They had a 7-15 record together and never really seemed to click as a partnership.

Despite their struggles in MLP, Padegimaite and Sleeth rebounded for a memorable run at Worlds in November. They beat Vivienne David/Lacy Schneemann (silver medalists at the North Carolina Cup earlier in the year) en route to the quarterfinals, where they fell to eventual champions Anna Bright/Rachel Rohrabacher.

They haven’t played a tournament together since, but that result should give Padegimaite and Sleeth plenty of confidence for the next time they take the court together. It’s also possible that Padegimaite/Sleeth are better in a side out scoring format (which MLP will have starting in 2025), as opposed to a rally scoring format.

On the men's side, French's best 2024 result came with Ivan Jakovljevic at the North Carolina Cup. They made the quarterfinals as the No. 19 seeds and picked up an impressive win over Tyler Loong/Julian Arnold along the way.

That result—coupled with the fact that the former soccer pro Jakovljevic has also played a few tournaments with Sleeth—only adds to his appeal as a potential draft target for California.

Brooklyn: Daniel de la Rosa, Amanda Hendry, Andrea Koop, Pablo Tellez

Before this trade, the Aces were facing the question of who to drop, since each player on their 2024 roster is under contract with the UPA. That decision has now been made for them, as they’ll have no choice but to drop Hendry.

We saw Koop represent Brooklyn in only four matches in 2024 because she was traded right at the deadline in September, but she went 3-0 in mixed doubles with De la Rosa and 0-1 with Tellez. Despite this, I expect her and Tellez to play together during the 2025 season.

That would leave the door open for the Aces to potentially go after Tamaryn (Tammy) Emmrich in the draft, since she will have to be dropped by the newly relocated Nashville Pandas. De la Rosa and Emmrich have played several PPA Tour events together and would make a good Challenger team.

Both teams have plenty to think about ahead of the Challenger level free agency draft, which is scheduled for Mar. 3.