Central Park Is About to Get Loud

Results from Newport Beach. A pickleball-bag essential you haven't tried.

Author

Empower Pickleball
August 18, 2026

Central Park is about to get loud. We're down to four teams—Shock, Fives, Flash, and Brooklyn—and they're all headed to Wollman Rink August 28-30 to settle who will take home the 2026 MLP title.

St. Louis looked unbeatable in Newport Beach, New Jersey's still got a mixed doubles riddle to solve, Dallas is the underdog story nobody saw coming, and Brooklyn just knocked out the reigning champs while playing hurt. One trophy, three days, and a Central Park backdrop most sports would kill for.

Who will be crowned MLP Champions?

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🏆 MLP Newport Delivered Chaos, and We're Here for It

The Quarterfinals went down at The Tennis and Pickleball Club in Newport Beach this weekend, and two of the top four seeds got sent home.

  • St. Louis Shock rolled the Texas Ranchers 3-0 in both matches for the cleanest performance of any team

  • New Jersey Fives survived Palm Beach in a DreamBreaker nailbiter, 21-17, though Anna Leigh Waters and Noe Khlif dropped both mixed matches

  • Dallas Flash pulled the weekend's biggest upset, knocking out No. 3 LA Mad Drops after a total roster shakeup post-Austin

  • Brooklyn eliminated reigning champ Columbus, riding a Riley Newman/Jackie Kawamoto win in the decisive game

Shock, Fives, Flash, and Brooklyn move on. The semifinals begin August 28 at Wollman Rink in Central Park.

🌎 Around the Picklesphere

🎧 That Pickleball Guy explains how to identify the game’s patterns and sequences
🏓 The most popular pickleballs of 2026
📋 Set your intentions for better results
🧑‍🧑‍🧒‍🧒 Be a part of the Empower Pickleball Fam and save 30% with code EMPOWER30

 🏃 Warm Up Anywhere, No Excuses

Tournament morning, six minutes till your match, no gym in sight. Sound familiar? Here's your courtside routine—no equipment, five minutes, done.

  • Arm circles to wake up your shoulders

  • Leg swings for those quick lateral steps

  • Torso twists to get the core activated

No mat or foam roller required. Run through these before your next match and feel the difference on your first few points.

🤔 Is Your Group Playing the Right Format?

If you organize games for your pickleball group, you've probably run a round robin. But there's more than one way to run it:

  • Partners: rotate every round or lock in fixed teams

  • Matchups: random for fun, or skill-based for competitive games

  • Standings: one-and-done, or carry scores week to week with a league or ladder

The right format depends on your group's size, the mix of skill levels, and how competitive everyone wants to get.

Get the combo right and you get great games and happy players. Get it wrong and the games turn lopsided or people spend more time waiting than playing.

Our friends at Pickleheads built a free Find Your Format Quiz to make this easy. Answer five quick questions about your group and it'll:

  • Recommend the format that fits: casual round robin, competitive bracket, or season-long league

  • Generate a sample round robin from one of their 12 built-in formats that you can preview before game day

  • Show you how to set up the real thing and invite players, all free

👉 Find your next format with Pickleheads’ free 30-second quiz.

📋 Your Community Needs a League. Here's How to Start One.

You don't need a private facility, a big budget, or tournament-director experience to start a pickleball league—you just need a plan. We broke down exactly how to go from idea to opening night.

  • Lock down courts before you open registration (this one step saves you the most headaches)

  • Pick a format that fits your players—a rotating-partner ladder is the easiest first move

  • Set a price by adding up real costs, not copying another league's fee

  • Plus the rules, tools, and standings system that keep a season from falling apart

And yes, we made you a free Pickleball League Planning Checklist so you don't have to build one from scratch.

👉 Get the complete league guide and free planning checklist.

 🤷 What If We Left Our Stress Outside the Court?

We talk endlessly about hydration, recovery, and massage guns—but almost never about the mental clutter we're hauling onto the court with us. Work stress, traffic, tournament nerves: none of it disappears just because you pulled out a paddle.

  • Rushed points, snapped frustration, one bad rally becoming three—that's stress showing up in your game, not just your head

  • Tournament day is its own beast—bracket checking, DUPR spirals, worrying about letting your partner down

  • The fix isn't a new routine. It's a cue to actually arrive before the first ball does—phone away, a few breaths, talk to your partner

We've been testing the Calm Rollerball from Aluminate Life as exactly that kind of cue—not a fix for anxiety, just a small ritual that says I'm here now before stepping onto the court.

👉 Read more about leaving stress outside the pickleball court. 

Interested in having your event listed? Reach out to us and let’s chat!

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