Latest news with #JuditCastillo
Forbes
30-06-2025
- Sport
- Forbes
Columbus Sliders Making Moves And Subs Shining At Major League Pickleball San Clemente
CJ Klinger certainly had the hot hand all weekend, leading his team up the charts. Major League Pickleball (MLP), presented by DoorDash, rolled right into its sixth event of the 10-event season on the heels of last week's PPA Orange County Cup on the grounds of Life Time San Clemente for a critical mid-season match featuring some of the 'middle class' of the Premier League battling for playoff positioning, along with the entire slate of Challenger teams. Key Links for tracking the event this weekend, which featured livestreams from the two primary courts at the facility on MLP's YouTube channel and on Transaction Recap Ahead of the weekend, the following transactions were announced: - MLP held its second Premier Waiver period (and only Challenger Waiver period) in the weeks leading up to this event, which featured a slew of moves more completely covered in this space earlier this month. - Just after the Waiver period, we saw three significant trades: 1. St Louis acquired Judit Castillo from SoCal for Cailyn Campbell. Campbell immediately moved into SoCal's starting lineup in San Clemente and went 3-7 in her first MLP Action. Not bad for a 15-yr old. 2. New Jersey gets Mari Humberg back, acquiring her from DC for Gecheva and cash. I'm not sure New Jersey played this player moving gambit well; if their intent was to get Humberg back, they should have just dropped her and re-bid for her in waivers. Instead, they have to go half the season undermanned (so to speak) and are unlikely to regain a playoff-bye spot at this point. 3. Carolina gets Tuiotenoa, Texas gets Christian & cash. This is an interesting move by two teams idle this past weekend, but which may have decent ramifications for Carolina, Ben Johns' performance, and the tail end of the playoff race. Johns and Tuiotenoa were teammates on the strong 2023 Seattle Pioneers team, which won two of the three MLP events and made the Super Premier final before falling. Carolina has a long way to go, being dead last in the standings, but with a dominant weekend could push their way up the rankings. News and Noteworthy Ahead of the event, here's some news and noteworthy items for MLP. - The major organizational news was the general announcement by UPA that they are going to a prize money-based model going forward. MLP will see massive payday increases as detailed in the link here, which include an amazing $250k payday PER PLAYER to the MLP season winning team. I'm presuming we will see some major energy shifts in the league starting in 2026 with so much on the line. With all that said, let's recap MLP San Clemente: Premier League Recap Super subs AJ Koller (L) and Rafa Hewett (R) stepped up big-time for the injury-plagued Brooklyn ... More Team. Day 1 Observations Day 2 Observations LA's Quong Duong rocking the throw-back jerseys with a flying slam against Phoenix. Day 3 Observations Utah's Connor Garnett did his best to keep his team in playoff League Recap Day 1 Observations Day 2 Observations Day 3 Observations Day 4 Observations Team Standings Update post Event Here's the teams who made moves up or down the Standings in this event. Reminder, thanks to the unbalanced schedule I refer points per match (PPM) as the standings determiner, not total points earned. In Premier In Challenger Player Standings/Stats Analysis for the Weekend: Unfortunately, the resource we depend on for individual player analysis hasn't been updated in time for this publication. What did we learn this weekend? What were our top three Takeaways from the competition this weekend? Media Pick' Em Contest Update MLP Super-Fan Matty Pickles (aka Matt Klitch) runs a season-long Media MLP Pick'em Contest on Twitter, where all the pundits in the sport are participating. Summary for San Clemente: Klitch has introduced some new rules, which have leveled the playing field for sure. I went 5-3 for the weekend but somehow retain my top spot in the season long pundit competition. Next up on the Pickleball Calendar? According to my Master Pickleball Schedule, we're going right into MLP Event No. 7 next weekend, as the whole tour has to make a cross-country trip in just a couple of days to hold MLP NYC on the Holman Ice rink in Central Park. All match stats quoted in this article are courtesy of PickleWave. Visit for the premier source of Pro Pickleball data, including match replays, highlights, stats, and discussion. PickleWave has more than 22,000 matches in its database across all the pro tours. Also, a great thanks to The Dink's Erik Tice, who maintains a fantastic MLP detailed data breakdown and makes it publicly available at this Google XLS link. Tice's data has proved invaluable this year as MLP does not make match data available at this detailed level at present.
Forbes
24-03-2025
- Sport
- Forbes
Castillo And Oshiro Take Home Caribbean Gold At The APP Cayman Island Pickleball Open
APP Cayman Open 2025 APP This past weekend, the Association of Pickleball Players (APP) headed to the Cayman Islands for a 'test run' of a pro stop in George Town, at the brand new 24-court Pickleball Cayman facility just outside the city center. A slew of top APP touring pros took advantage of the recent cancellation of PWR commitments to take a quick Caribbean vacation and hit up Grand Cayman Island for a weekend of fun and competition. Here's a quick recap of the Open Draws. There was prize money to be had, but no APP ranking points. The event had more than 240 players, a pretty sizeable draw for a resort community. Click here for the home page for the event, where you can get tournament details, draw sheets, and results. Let's recap the action. Former UCLA star and now South Carolina player Max Wild upset No. 1 Foster in the quarters and made the singles final, but could not overcome veteran No. 2 Riley DeHeart, who topped him 12,11 for the win. Gold: Ryler DeHeart. Silver: Max Wild. Bronze: Richard Livornese Jr. Judit Castillo upended No. 1 seed Yana Newell in the final for the singles win. Newell had topped teenage sensation Schull in the semis. Texas-based pro Nicole Pitts had a huge back-draw run to claim Bronze. Gold: Judit Castillo. Silver: Yana Newell. Bronze: Nicole Pitts. The Mixed draw was filled with APP heavyweights, and the back end of the competition did not disappoint. The reigning APP event champion Bobbi Oshiro teamed with Richard Livornese to upend the No. 1 seeds Megan Fudge & Jack Munro in the final, a great win for both. Gold: Oshiro/Livornese. Silver: Fudge/Munro. Bronze: Newell/Kawka. Richard Livornese made it three medals out of three divisions, pairing with Jack Munro to take the gold. Gold: Munro/Livornese. Silver: Mick/Newell. Bronze: DeHeart/Kawka Bobbi Oshiro & Judit Castillo both secured dual golds for their weekend at the Beach, cruising to a title together. Gold: Oshiro/Castillo. Silver: Fudge/Pitts. Bronze: Newell/Mayorga-Perry The local club has five teaching pros (by the way, is that possibly the greatest job in the world? A pickleball pro in the Cayman Islands?), some of whom also competed against the traveling APP pros. The best finishes by local pros I could find: - Michael Carse finished 8th in Open Doubles. - Dana Karani finished 18th in Open Doubles, 18th in Open Singles. - Steve Thompson finished 16th in Open Doubles. Unlike in normal pro events, there were no Senior pro events this weekend. Most of the budding Senior Pros were at an NPL combine in Houston. Next up on the Pickleball Calendar? According to my Master Pickleball Schedule, next week is the PPA Red Rock pro stop, the APP Collegiates event at Cape Coral, a USAP golden ticket event in Tucson, and a PPA challenger event in Columbia, South Carolina. Busy week. And that's after the PWR pulled the plug on its spring schedule.
