Columbus Sliders
Finished 4 · 83 pts · Quarterfinal
Columbus Sliders finished 4 in the 2026 regular season on 83 standings points and made the 12-team playoff. Here is the roster as the season ended, the draft class that built it, and every trade and waiver move in between — reconciled from the league’s own transaction logs.
How the season ended
Lost in the quarterfinals to Brooklyn, in the longest series of the postseason (3–2, 3–2, 3–1). Columbus were the defending 2025 champions.
Roster at season’s end
| Player | Tour ranking | 2026 season |
|---|---|---|
| Hurricane Tyra Black | Women’s doubles #4 · 2191 Mixed #6 · 2189 | 77.9% from 86 matches gender doubles 33-11 · mixed 34-8 |
| Parris Todd | Women’s doubles #6 · 2161 Mixed #18 · 1966 | 77.3% from 75 matches gender doubles 26-8 · mixed 27-9 · singles 5-0 |
| Andrei Daescu | Men’s doubles #3 · 2246 Mixed #4 · 2233 | 76.4% from 89 matches gender doubles 34-11 · mixed 34-10 |
| Judit Castillo | Women’s doubles #32 · 1787 | 50.0% from 62 matches gender doubles 10-11 · mixed 8-10 · singles 13-10 |
| Alex Crum | — | — |
| CJ Klinger | — | — |
How a matchup is played
Every MLP match is four games in a fixed order — women’s doubles, men’s doubles, then two mixed doubles — each to 11, win by two, and all four are played even when the match is already decided, because point differential decides seeding. New for 2026: there are no starters and subs. A team may use all six players in one match, and may field a different man for men’s doubles than for mixed. Doubles lineups are submitted the night before. At 2–2 it goes to a DreamBreaker — singles, any four from the roster, two men and two women, chosen only after the fourth game, with the home team declaring first.
Pairing-by-pairing records are not published by the league for every team. We would rather leave this blank than guess — the 2026 full-roster rule makes lineups genuinely fluid, and an invented pairing would be obvious to anyone who watched the season.
Where these numbers come from. Rankings and ELO are PickleWave’s per-discipline model, captured 4 September 2026 — an independent rating built from professional match results, not an official tour ranking, and its leaderboards run 100 deep per discipline. Mixed doubles is a single combined pool of men and women, so a rank there is not a rank among men or among women. Season records cover all professional play in 2026 — PPA, APP and MLP combined — not MLP alone. Pairing records, where shown, were published by The Kitchen in August 2026 with statistics credited to PickleKey.com. The roster reconciliation is our own work from the league’s draft results and transaction logs. Pickleball Insiders is not affiliated with Major League Pickleball.
How the roster was built
MLP’s 2026 draft was a live auction — teams bid for each selection slot, so there was no preset pick order. Teams could protect up to five players at the keeper deadline on 15 February; 54 players were kept across the league, and the remaining 66 slots were filled at the draft on 27 February.
Kept (3): Parris Todd · Andrei Daescu · CJ Klinger
Drafted (3):
| Pick | Player | Reported bid |
|---|---|---|
| 3 | Danni-Elle Townsend | $180,000 |
| 42 | Alli Phillips | — |
| 50 | Alex Crum | — |
Transactions
| Date | In | Out | From / to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mar 14 | Alix Truong | Miami Pickleball Club | |
| Mar 14 | Alli Phillips | Carolina Hogs | |
| May 28 | Judit Castillo | Phoenix Flames | |
| May 28 | Alix Truong | Phoenix Flames | |
| Jun 15 | Hurricane Tyra Black | Dallas Flash | |
| Jun 15 | Danni-Elle Townsend | Dallas Flash |
February post-draft roster: Parris Todd · Danni-Elle Townsend · Alli Phillips · Andrei Daescu · CJ Klinger · Alex Crum
More: all 20 team rosters · the 2026 draft · season and calendar · pro coverage
About this page. Pickleball Insiders is an independent publication, not affiliated with, endorsed by or authorised by Major League Pickleball or any team or player named here. The roster is reconstructed from the league’s published draft, trade and waiver records applied in date order; where those records do not balance we say so rather than smoothing it over. A best reading of the public record, not an official roster document. Corrections welcome and made in place. Contact · How we work