^{Advertise | The Dink Home | Shop Gear | Subscribe}

Happy days, Major League Pickleball is back at last. This week marks the beginning of the new season, with 11 Premier level teams facing off in Dallas, Texas, starting on Thursday.

From new rules to new teams to an entirely new format with the elimination of the Challenger division, there’s a lot to catch up on before the first serve. We break it all down below.

In This Issue:
— Anna Bright’s favorite drills
— Is 4.0 open play even fun anymore?
— Paddle co.’s revenue streams, ranked

Let’s get into it.

You know Anna Leigh Waters is the GOAT, but a new profile from NBC takes a deeper look at the backstory of pro pickleball’s greatest star. “She wins everything,” said PPA Tour CEO Connor Pardoe. “She’s virtually unbeatable.” Get to know ALW.

The Major League Pickleball season begins this week, and a brand-new rule should help distribute talent to more teams: “No MLP team may, at any point, roster three players of the same gender who are each ranked in the PPA Top 20 of their respective gendered doubles.” Learn more.

Collin Johns has been out of the spotlight for a minute, but he’s not out of the game just yet: he and partner Len Yang (a fellow JOOLA pro) just won the PPA Kuala Lumpur Open, besting a tough team in Tama Shimabukuro and Armaan Bhatia. It’s CJ’s first PPA Asia Gold.

Rising PPA Tour star Kiora Kunimoto has officially signed a paddle deal with Selkirk. The 18-year-old Hawai’i native has toppled giants this season in singles and looks to keep the momentum going in MLP on the California Black Bears.

When your fourth player bails on pickleball night, most amateurs panic. But Anna Bright, the world's #2 professional pickleball player, sees it as an opportunity.

She argues that three-person pickleball drilling isn't a consolation prize when someone cancels—it's a superior training method for adding new skills and simulating real match conditions in ways that traditional two-person drills simply can't match.

Here are her faves:

✅ The patience game. Get all three players at the kitchen line. The solo player covers one side only. The rule is simple: no speedups allowed. Only dinking. This is all about variation and forcing your opponent to move under duress. When you can’t rely on power, use deception and placement instead.

✅ The lone assassin. Now the game changes: only the solo player is allowed to speed up and attack. The team should focus on keeping balls low and unattackable, while the solo player must be smart about defending until the time is just right.

✅ Everything goes. Now it’s a free-for-all. If you want to add some spice, allow only aerial attacks. Now it’s all about precision dinking, patience, and shot placement. Just don’t get complacent — when you get a sitter, make the other team pay.

Try these out the next time you find yourself one short — even if it’s between games during rec. Trust us here: If they’re good enough for Anna Bright, they’re good enough for you.

➡️ Watch Anna demonstrate.

A lot of players think more games = more improvement.

Not always.

If you keep repeating the same habits every weekend, your game usually stays exactly where it is.

Selkirk Academy camps are designed to help players break out of autopilot through focused coaching, intentional reps, and competitive play that actually teaches you something.

You’re not just drilling for the sake of drilling. Coaches identify what’s holding your game back, then help you fix it in real time through strategy work, live feedback, and structured sessions built around real improvement.

And honestly? A focused pickleball weekend in a great summer destination sounds a lot better than another random day of rec play.

Find a Selkirk Academy camp near you this summer!

It’s been a long, grindy season on the PPA Tour, full of upsets, storylines, and elite talent of the likes we’ve never seen. Established names dominated. New contenders entered the arena.

We’ve loved every second of it, but like you, we’re ready for a change.

Enter: Major League Pickleball.

This week, Pickler Universe in Dallas will be hosting 30 matches between Thursday and Sunday for the MLP season-opener. With the new format of the regular season, the stakes are high right off the bat.

Our pro expert Erik Tice breaks down his most burning plotlines to be on the lookout for:

🔥 Does the new regular season event format make sense? MLP has tried to tweak the format and structure of the regular season for three straight years. Did they get it right this year?

🔥 We will see Jorja Johnson versus her old team in the first event. Johnson had been part of the Dallas Flash for two straight years and then Dallas dropped her, hoping to pick her up in the draft again this year. No such luck. It will be interesting to see Anna Leigh Waters and Jorja paired up against the new-look Flash, who made some recent changes to their roster.

🔥 The Columbus Sliders are the defending champs, but they’re without Parris Todd. Five months ago, Parris was suspended for two events and fined $50,000 for attending an unapproved event in Japan. Todd is not allowed to play in Dallas, so the women will be two newly acquired ladies in Alix Truong and Danni-Elle Townsend.

🔥 Will parity be an issue in 2026? In each of the competing pools, there are three teams pundits agree could contend for a title and five others that are middling and/or near the bottom of power rankings. Will the lack of parity be an issue again this year? Or will some of the lesser ranked teams be more competitive than we think?

As a reminder:

There’s a lot to digest this year. We did all the work for you.

➡️ Your full MLP Dallas preview, right here.

A frustrated Reddit user asks a question many of us have struggled with before: “Can open play really be fun after 4.0?”

Before you object or call us elitist, trust that we’ve been here a hundred times. Yes, there are ways to get something out of a session where you’re surrounded by less-skilled players — or even just one or two. And to be clear, we're talking about DUPR-verified, 4.0+ open play here.

This is constructive until it’s not. At a certain point, it’s hard to deny that the lines between true and perceived DUPR ratings start to blur around the 4.0 level. And often, in this type of open play environment, it’s the more skilled players who are getting the shorter end of the stick.

As soon as the word “advanced” appears, intermediate players feel tempted to play up. And who can blame them? The best way to improve quickly, as we all know, is to play with more skilled players.

Still, one player swinging out of their depth can change the dynamic of an entire “advanced open play” session to the point where even trying to work on some new skills can feel hopeless.

As one frustrated player put it: “My partner isn’t ready for speed ups, doesn’t reset, only bangs, can’t dink, randomly throws up a crappy lob, or… all of the above.”

This, inevitably, is why so many players opt for private games at a certain skill level.

➡️ Can you relate?

Some paddles make you feel like every shot has to be perfect.

The FLiK F3 is kind of the opposite.

Drops feel softer. Resets stop randomly popping up. Counters stay controlled when hands battles speed up. Even mishits feel more forgiving than expected.

You still get enough offense to put balls away, but the biggest difference is how comfortable and confident everything feels.

And right now, the pricing is absurd:

FLiK is offering a $50 instant rebate, plus another 10% off with code THEDINK.

That drops the F3 to around $126.

Unlock the FLiK F3 deal here and get 10% off with code THEDINK.

In the wake of the Bread & Butter / Selkirk acquisition news, industry OG David Johnson (former CEO and founder of Pickleball Central) put out an eye-opening graphic in his latest Business of Pickleball newsletter (paid subscription, learn more here).

Above is his rank of paddle brands in terms of their yearly revenue from pickleball-specific products.

If you play a game of mix-and-match, it starts to make sense that we may see more consolidation among top dogs and smaller players.

This is based on one industry expert’s estimates, of course. But a few other things jump out to us here:

We’re constantly reviewing paddles from all these brands and more.

➡️ See all our latest paddle reviews.

A review from the Dink Fam...

Share the best newsletter in pickleball with your friends and you’ll get free stuff. What’s not to like?

{{rp_personalized_text}}

Copy & Paste this link: {{rp_refer_url_no_params}}

If your company is interested in reaching an audience of active pickleballers, you may want to give us a shout.