The first round of the 2026 Major League Pickleball postseason is in the books, and each of the four highest-seeded teams that were in action won their respective series to advance to next week’s quarterfinal rounds.

As a reminder, the top 4 seeds from the regular season (New Jersey, St. Louis, Los Angeles, and Columbus) received byes to skip this event, and each matchup was a best two-out-of-three-match series.

Let’s get into how each series went.

No. 5 Brooklyn Pickleball Team def. No. 10 SoCal Hard Eights 2-0.

Brooklyn made the objectively correct call to choose to play against a SoCal squad that was without an injured Armaan Bhatia, but the Hard Eights nearly turned the table on the heavy favorites by forcing a DreamBreaker in the first match of the series on Saturday. Brooklyn escaped with a 24-22 win thanks to some late heroics from Jackie Kawamoto and went on to win 3-1 on Sunday, but SoCal deserves a lot of credit for the fight they showed. Hats off to Cailyn Campbell, Will MacKinnon, Meghan Dizon, Rafa Lenhard, and head coach Adam Stone. Even though health is still a question across the board for Brooklyn (specifically for Rachel Rohrabacher), no team will want to play them going into the quarterfinals.

No. 6 Dallas Flash def. No. 11 Las Vegas Night Owls 2-0.

Dallas came into the postseason on an 11-match winning streak and on the heels of two consecutive Super Sunday belts in San Diego and Chicago. That didn’t deter Las Vegas at first, though, as the Night Owls’ pairing of Zoey Wang/Callie Smith beat Danni-Elle Townsend/Alix Truong in women’s doubles before Roscoe Bellamy/Clayton Powell opened up a 9-5 lead over JW Johnson/Augie Ge in men’s doubles. From that moment on, though, it was all Dallas. Johnson/Ge came back to win 13-11 before winning both mixed doubles games to win the first match 3-1, and in match 2 on Saturday, the Flash flexed their muscles with a dominant 3-0 sweep to win their 13^th match in a row heading into the quarterfinals.

No. 7 Palm Beach Royals def. No. 12 Chicago Slice 2-0.

After last week’s fairytale run in Orlando to make the postseason, Chicago entered the playoffs with no shortage of confidence. Chicago actually took Palm Beach to a DreamBreaker (and had match points) last week, but it wasn’t meant to be in the Lone Star State. Led by a perfect 4-0 weekend from Sofia Sewing, the Royals beat the Slice 3-1 in both matches to advance to the quarterfinals in their first year of operation.

No. 8 Texas Ranchers def. No. 9 Atlanta Bouncers 2-0.

Despite having the higher seed in this matchup, the Ranchers actually had a losing record against the Bouncers during the regular season, as Atlanta won their lone meeting in a DreamBreaker at MLP Austin. It’s fitting, then, that both matches of their postseason series went to a DreamBreaker as well, as Texas got their revenge in a big way. The veteran Atlanta squad sure they had their chances—especially after going up 2-0 in their opening match—but Texas took both mixed doubles games before eventually winning the DreamBreaker. The Ranchers’ move to acquire Kaitlyn Christian from the Bouncers earlier this season certainly paid off, as the No. 3-ranked women’s singles player on the PPA Tour earned the final point on Sunday to keep Texas’ season alive.

The playoffs continue this week with the Toray MLP Playoffs – Newport Beach. The top 4 teams in the standings (starting with New Jersey in the No. 1 spot) will choose their opponents on Monday, and action will start on Friday in Southern California.

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