In 2024 and 2025, the New Jersey 5s came within one match of winning the Major League Pickleball title before watching it slip through their grasp on both occasions.

Those types of losses—especially in consecutive seasons—can stain a franchise, but New Jersey entered 2026 with the same championship aspirations and boasting returning starters Anna Leigh Waters, Will Howells, and Noe Khlif.

The 2026 mission began on draft day, where the 5s bid $800,000 on the second overall pick slot to select Jorja Johnson, who won the 2024 championship with the Dallas Flash.

And despite establishing themselves as title contenders early on, the 5s continued looking for ways to bolster their roster ahead of the postseason.

“The question wasn’t if we had a good team,” 5s co-owner Raquel Joseph told me earlier this month. “We knew we did, but the question was more about whether we had an opportunity to make an excellent team even better.”

New Jersey found that opportunity in late July when they acquired Federico Staksrud, the No. 5-ranked player in the World Pickleball Rankings, from the Orlando Squeeze right before the trade deadline.

Now with an even more stacked roster, New Jersey marched back to the championship; they overcame stiff resistance from the Palm Beach Royals in the quarterfinals in Newport Beach, CA before sweeping the Brooklyn Pickleball Team in the semifinals at Central Park in New York City.

That set them up to face the St. Louis Shock, another MLP juggernaut looking for its first season-long title.

After New Jersey pulled off a comeback DreamBreaker victory in the first match of the series on Saturday, attention turned to the second match on Sunday.

Same players. Same matchups. But bigger stakes with a title once again within reach.

Sunday’s contest, part of which aired in front of a national audience on CBS, demonstrated just how even New Jersey and St. Louis are.

All four doubles games had the opposite results from the previous day; New Jersey won both gender doubles games, while St. Louis won both must-win mixed doubles games with their backs against the wall.

That brought on a DreamBreaker for the second straight match of the series.

And after narrowly winning the first one on Saturday after saving match point, New Jersey dominated Sunday’s DreamBreaker 21-9 to secure the franchise’s first season-long MLP title and lift the curse that had haunted them in each of the past two seasons.

“It means everything. I care about these players more than they could possibly know. I think about them more than I should. I want them to have the best careers they could possibly have. I really love them,” said 5s General Manager Ryan Harwood. “The most satisfying part is looking my players in the eyes and knowing what they’ve gone through to be here. The late night talks I’ve had with Noe, with Will, with everybody. We care so much.”

With Sunday’s triumph, Anna Leigh Waters earns her first career MLP title, an accolade that had previously eluded the 19-year-old’s illustrious legacy.

“It feels amazing,” she said. “This is definitely something I’ve been wanting to check off the list for a while now, but I couldn’t have done it without my teammates. It was definitely a group effort.”

The aforementioned Federico Staksrud was named the inaugural MLP Finals MVP after posting a 4-2 doubles record on the weekend and outscoring the Shock’s Hunter Johnson 13-7 through the two DreamBreakers played against St. Louis.

The Argentine shared a heartfelt moment as he explained what the honor means to him.

“It’s just a lot of emotions because you work so hard every day for this,” he noted. “It’s just unbelievable. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s something that I’m gonna remember for my whole life. That’s what I play for, these moments.”

For as memorable a summer as the 2026 Major League Pickleball season has given fans, the pro pickleball circuit is hardly slowing down as the PPA Tour returns to action on Tuesday with the Veolia Pickleball National Championships in Cary, N.C.