After taking the US version of MLP by storm, Danni Elle Townsend is taking her talents back home for MLP Australia 2026.
MLP
If you thought you were done with Major League Pickleball for 2026, think again. While the US-based domestic MLP season finished up at the end of August with a scintillating final in NYC, two international versions of the league are set to kick off for competition over the coming months.
We’ll preview both MLP Australia (which kicks off its fourth season this coming weekend), and MLP Asia, which just announced rosters for its debut season that starts in Mid-November.
MLP Australia 2026 Preview
This year’s MLP Australia season features eight teams (including all four of the original 2023 franchises) trying to unseat the 2025 champion Bondi Pickleball Club. The league has consolidated a bit from the last couple of seasons, moving from 12 to 8 teams in order to add more competitive balance. To balance the teams, the league distributed the eight best players as “captains” of the franchises, then conducted a snake draft earlier this summer to draft the teams.
The draft details and roster of available players is here, and the finalized rosters are here. The eight captains are all top players in the Pro pickleball scene in Australia, and many have become mainstays in the US pro scene as well. The first round of “marquee” players selected are mostly regulars on the medal stands of PPA Australia events, and then the rest of the teams are lesser-known names to die-hard pro pickleball fans, but who may soon become household names. Teams were limited to just one “international” player on the roster, though most teams are all four ANZ based.
The teams will play standard MLP rules, with teams of two men and two women playing four rounds of doubles and a DreamBreaker to decide the winning team if tied at 2-games apiece.
Here’s a quick guide to your eight franchises and marquee players:
- Brisbane Breakers; inaugural 2023 season champs. This year they’re captained by Joey Wild and their marquee player is Harrison Brown, the first overall pick in the 2026 draft. They probably comprise the strongest male pairing in the league.
- The Bondi Pickleball Club is the defending 2025 league champs and are led by Jason Taylor. They drafted Katy Hart No. 3 overall, then paired her with Katie Morris for a solid Women’s duo.
- The Coasters are led by 2026 MLP sensation and Most Improved Player Danni-Elle Townsend. In the first round they drafted Ryan Henry 5th overall, then added marquee player Roman Esteraja for a solid squad.
- The Gold Coast Glory are led this year by Sarah Burr. They drafted another top female in the 1st round, nabbing Jamie Haas 4th overall to comprise the strongest female duo in the league.
- The Melbourne Thunder are one of the four O.G. teams of the league and have rebranded this year. They’re led by Zach Grabovic and added top international touring pro Tom Protzek in the first round. Protzek was initially drafted to this year’s Chicago Slice, but visa issues never allowed him to play.
- The Northern Crocs joined the league in 2024 and are led this season by captain Andie Dikosavljevic, the best singles player in Australia. They also went female-female in the draft to start, picking Talia Saunders in the first round.
- The Pacific Flame definitely went big at the top, led by perhaps Australia’s best all around female in Sahra Dennehy as captain and then pairing her with one of Australia’s most decorated men in Lucas Pascoe.
- Sydney Smash is one of the four OG franchises dating to the league’s beginnings, and are led this season by another OG player in Mitch Hargreaves. They picked a familiar name in Joey Farias as their marquee player.
MLP Australia is set for a four-event season this fall, kicking off this coming weekend in Melbourne. Click here for the MLP Australia schedule, and click here for my master Pickleball Schedule where you can filter for any organization to see the upcoming events.
My early picks for the season? I like Gold Coast, Brisbane, and Pacific Flame.
MLP Asia 2026 Preview
Tama Shimabukuro was the 1st draft pick for the inaugural MLP Asia league, starting in November.
PPA Asia
MLP Asia will kick off its inaugural season in a couple months. Six teams will play across Asia in events starting in Mid November, with each event to feature three of the six teams playing round robin style events. Teams in the first season are based in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Manilla, mainland China, and Vietnam.
The draft was just completed for the first season, and much like earlier versions of the MLP Australia draft there’s a very heavy component of familiar US-based names who will take part in the kickoff season. Each team will feature three men and three women, three domestic and three international players. The domestic portion of the draft was conducted earlier, with teams picking their home-country players, giving an immediate advantage to (in particular) Vietnam and China, who have taken the lead in early pickleball player development.
With the conclusion of the International draft last week, the six rosters are now set. The teams had to comply with a salary cap in the draft, not unlike the early seasons of the US-based MLP teams.
Here’s a quick overview of the six teams and their marquee players.
- The Dragon Warriors are based in mainland China and are captained by the decorated Beijing-based Lingwei Kong. They got a very talented set of internationals in the draft, picking Greyson Golden in the 1st round, Taiwan-based Ting Chieh “Jamey” Wei in the second, and Luc Pham in the third for a very talented squad.
- The Hong Kong Cannons have multi-gold medal winning Hong Kit “Jack” Wong as their captain, added India’s No. 1 Armaan Bhatia in the first round of the draft, Chao-Yi “Zoey” Wang in the second, and then added the talented Japan-based Kei Sawaki in the last for a great team.
- The Malayan Stripes have Jimmy Liong as their captain and with the 2nd overall pick added one of the best men in all of PPA Asia in Seoul-based Eunggwon Kim. They proceeded to add the underrated Xiao Yi Wang-Beckvall and then Lacy Schneemann in the final round, somehow getting a near top 10 PPA pro as the 18th and last pick.
- Manila Helios are captained by Philippines based Kim Saraza and went with a very underrated squad of Seina Shima, Muhammad Aiman, and Mayu Ito in the draft. It is safe to say that of all six geographic areas, the Philippines are the least developed as a pickleball nation, and the Manilla team comes in at a disadvantage thus domestically.
- Team Tokyo unsurprisingly went heavy on Japan-based players, captained by the venerable former soft tennis world champion Yuta Funemizu. In the domestic portion of the draft he was able to secure Rika Fujiwara and Aiko Yoshitomi, then added the likes of Nasa Hatakeyama and South Korean Mihae Kwon in the international component.
- The Viet Panthers may have had the best built-in domestic advantage, getting their captain Quan Do, Hien Truong, and Sophia Nhi Huynh before the international draft even started. Then, they won the first pick in the draft and nabbed US teenage super star Tama Shimabukuro. To add further talent, they got Kaitlyn Christian in the second round to create a pretty dominant-looking team.
My early favorites have to be the Viet Panthers. The two China-based teams (Hong Kong Cannons and the Dragon Warriors) also look tough.
Play kicks off in Mid-November for the MLP Asia teams, who will have plenty of travel logistics to juggle with all these internationals flying in and out for events.
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