Two legs. Two titles. One real scare.
The Parañaque Titans are quickly turning the inaugural Maharlika Pilipinas Pickleball Tour (MPPT) Invitational into their personal playground, beating the Tacloban Aces, 3-1, in the second-leg final on Championship Sunday at the Tagaytay Velodrome, hosted by the Alfonso Siklab. But the Titans had to survive a giant-killer to get there, and that giant-killer made the loudest noise of the weekend.
The Tour in a Nutshell
If you’re new to the MPPT, here’s the quick version. The league was launched by boxing icon Manny Pacquiao, is sanctioned by the Games and Amusement Board, and features 12 teams from Luzon, Metro Manila, Visayas, and Mindanao across five legs. After Tagaytay, the tour moves to Abra on November 7 to 8 and to Bacoor on November 14 to 15. Each tie is decided by a men’s match, a women’s match, and two mixed matches, with a tiebreaker if teams split 2-2.
The Parañaque Titans came in as the team to beat. Its roster is anchored by national team players Leander Lazaro and Ruben Gonzales, and co-founder Tina Mariano said chemistry was the Titans’ biggest edge: “First of all, they’re all friends.” They won the first leg in Pampanga, beating the Abra River Paddlers, 3-1, in the final, with Lazaro going unbeaten. So the question in Tagaytay was simple: could anyone stop them?
Super Saturday Sets the Table
The group stage on Satuday, October 17, pointed to a rematch. In Group A, the Abra River Paddles were untouchable at 14-1 with a +85 point differential. The Gensan Punchers and Rizal Ilustrados were a distant second and third, respectively, with identical 9-6 records, although the former had a +33 point differential to the latter’s +13 only.
In Group B, the Parañaque Titans went 13-2 with a +64 differential, with Alfonso Siklab (10-5), Batangas Bangers (9-6), and Tacloban Aces (8-7) trailing. Tacloban, in other words, barely got in. Nobody was talking about them. Not yet.
Tacloban Shocks the Top Seed
Championship Sunday opened with three sweeps. Rizal blanked Alfonso, 3-0, Parañaque rolled past Bangued Miki, 3-0, and Gensan dispatched Batangas, 3-0.
Then came the shocker. The Tacloban Aces took down top-seeded Abra, 3-2, in a thriller that went all the way to a tiebreaker. The Aces won it, 30-29, and the tournament’s No. 1 seed was out. Tacloban kept rolling in the semifinals, beating Rizal, 3-1, with an 11-0 win in the men’s, a 12-10 squeaker in the women’s, and an 11-5 win in the decisive mixed match. On the other side, Parañaque outlasted Gensan, 3-1, sweeping the men’s and women’s matches and closing out the second mixed after dropping the first.
The Final: Parañaque Titans Answer the Challenge
Tacloban drew first blood, winning the men’s match, 11-9, and for a moment the upset run looked like it might finish the job. The Parañaque Titans had other ideas.
The women’s pair of Sarah Jane Lim-Narvasa and Fatima Amirul answered with an 11-4 win to level it. Gonzales and Jess Agra then dominated Mixed 1, 11-1, and Lazaro and Lim-Narvasa, two of the Philippines’ very best, closed it out with an 11-5 win in Mixed 2. From 0-1 down to 3-1 up. That’s what a champion does.
The Bottom Line
The Parañaque Titans proved the first title wasn’t a fluke. Tacloban proved something else: in this league, a lead, a seed, or a 14-1 record doesn’t guarantee a thing. Abra found that out the hard way. Parañaque is the team to beat, but the rest of the field just got a blueprint.
