DALLAS, TX - The ten teams competing at Major League Pickleball’s Challenger level are fighting for six available playoff spots, with hopes of finishing in the top four to earn a promotion to the Premier level in 2025.

Five of those teams were in action this past weekend in Kansas City, so let’s take a look at the updated standings at the midway point in the regular season.

Every team will have played 23 regular season matches when all is said and done, but some teams have played significantly more matches than others so far.

The California Black Bears, for example, have played 14 matches, while the Florida Smash have played just seven.

For this reason, we’ll be looking at each team’s average standings points earned per match to beast gauge their success.

Team to beat

The Brooklyn Aces hold the top spot, averaging 1.88 standings points per match. There are two things to note with this squad: they haven’t played a regular season match since MLP D.C. back in June, and they made a major roster modification shortly after that.

Brooklyn acquired Pablo Tellez in a trade with the Premier level’s Texas Ranchers ahead of the first waiver period of the season. This allowed Texas to eventually grab Quang Duong off of waivers, a move that has played a key role in the Ranchers’ recent success.

Tellez helped lead the Aces—also featuring Lina Padegimaite, Daniel de la Rosa, and Layne Sleeth—to a title at the mid-season tournament in his first time competing with his new teammates.

Brooklyn is the team to beat going forward.

Upwards and downwards

The SoCal Hard Eights stand tall in second place, earning 1.85 standings points per match. Their intrastate rivals, the Bay Area Breakers are in place and averaging 1.31 points per match.

I’m grouping these two California teams together because their seasons have mirrored each other up to this point.

SoCal had a rough start to the year at MLP Atlanta, going 1-5. They didn’t have another match for almost two months. During that time, they added Yana Newell from waivers to replace Christine Maddox.

Newell won a title with SoCal in 2023, and her presence is again a positive one for the Hard Eights in 2024.

SoCal—also with Erik Lange, Irina Tereschenko, and Max Manthou—earned third place at the mid-season tournament and have reeled off ten consecutive wins.

The Breakers, on the other hand, started off incredibly well in Atlanta with a 5-1 record.

Like their California counterparts, they didn’t have another match until the mid-season tournament. And also like the SoCal, Bay Area modified its roster through trades and the waiver period.

Specifically, the Breakers brought in Allyce Jones, Jill Braverman, and DJ Young to compete alongside Collin Shick and replace Vivian Glozman, Rachel Rettger, and Patrick Kawka, respectively.

The new-look Breakers have struggled out of the gate, going 1-6 through their first two regular season events together.

Bouncing in the wrong direction

The Atlanta Bouncers are in fifth place (averaging 1.67 points per match) after a somewhat disappointing performance in Kansas City. They went 1-3 and were 0-2 in DreamBreakers.

DreamBreaker struggles have been a defining part of Atlanta’s season so far, as the team featuring Jaume Martinez Vich, Genie Erokhina, Todd Fought, and Angie Walker are just 1-6 in those deciding contests.

The Bouncers would still sneak into the playoffs if the season ended today, but they would be in much better position with even moderately better performances in those do-or-die scenarios.

Slicing the competition

In the span of three days, the Chicago Slice went from being the only team in Major League Pickleball without a win to having a good shot at making the playoffs.

After boasting a 3-1 record in Kansas City, the Slice now sit in sixth place with an average of 1.57 standings points per match.

Even more impressive is the fact that they did it without the No. 2 overall pick in the draft, Jack Munro. Martin Emmrich filled in admirably for the 20-year-old and went 6-2 competing alongside Megan Fudge, Allison Harris, and Brendon Long.

What it all means

If the current points-per-match averages hold—which is highly, highly unlikely—then the Miami Pickleball Club, Bay Area Breakers, Florida Smash, and California Black Bears would miss the playoffs.

The good news for each of those teams is that there are four more regular season events, meaning that there is ample opportunity for them to change the course of their seasons.

After an MLP-heavy summer swing, attention now shifts back to the PPA Tour. There are four PPA tournaments in August, beginning with this week’s Selkirk Kansas City Open.

The next MLP event will be MLP New York, set to run Sept. 19-22.