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Matt's Pickleball Newsletter · Aug 24, 2026

Spartus Spitfire Takes #1, Up 50% in a Week

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Matt's Pickleball · Matt's Pickleball Newsletter

How this list is built: I do not pick the paddles on this list, you do. It is generated from research activity across mattspickleball.com over the last week. No editorial curation, no sponsor influence (or sponsors to keep happy), and no paid placement. Some links are affiliate links.

Breakout: V-Sol Tour | Vatic Pro (new at #6) Added to the website Wednesday in 3 shapes, and inside the top 10 by Sunday. Grouped as a single line, the 3 shapes together would have landed at #4.

Spitfire | Spartus (↑1 to #1, up 50.3%) The largest climb of any returning line, and it did it as the only single-shape paddle in the top 5. $109.99 (about $99 after code) · Code MPB · Full Review

Coral Pro | Six Zero Pickleball The Elongated shape drove it at 55.4%, the sharpest move inside the family. $220 · Code MPB · Video Review

Turbo MPP | Enhance Pickleball Third straight week of growth on the cheapest paddle here after the Spitfire. $119.99 · Code MPB · Full Review

Heating in the long tail Pickle Poppers’ POP N Pink nearly 300% and Thrive’s Ignite rose just over 150%, both off small bases. RPM’s Friction Pro Elongated rose just over 100% as RPM added 2 new Friction Pro V2 shapes. Mark Pickleball’s Unmarked 2026 rose almost 100% in its second week. Six Zero’s Boulder Opal was the strongest new arrival outside the Vatic launch.

Ranked by what thousands of players researched on mattspickleball.com last week, grouped by model line.

$109.99 · Code MPB · Buy · USAP approved Comes in Elongated only.

I picked this one up and just played it. No adjustment period necessary (and that doesn’t always happen). The tone off the face is deep and a little hollow, and the grit bites on a slow dink the same way it does on a full swing. The mass sits well toward the head, so full drives carry through the ball more than they snap off it. The open question is still how long a peel-ply surface like PermaGritNano keeps that bite.

$209.99 · Code MPB · Buy · UPA-A Comes in Elongated, Hybrid and Standard.

The MPP foam gives good feedback at contact: you know where on the face you hit it. The flat top is what separates it from the Vapor, since the face stays parallel to contact across more of the hitting surface.

$195 · Code MPB · Buy · UPA-A Comes as a Hybrid, including a Long Handle.

It is head-light and quick in hand, quicker than most foam hybrids in a firefight. On soft dinks with a little bit of pace, the ball has shape, so the Crystal Blue surface works at every contact speed and not only when you swing hard. Stability is on the lower end in stock form but a few grams on the lower corners helps stabilize it. If you have been avoiding foam cores because they feel dense and slow, this is the one to look at.

$220 · Code MPB · Buy · UPA-A Comes in Elongated, Hybrid and Standard.

Pick it up and it already feels different from the standard Coral: it grabs. The core did not change, so you can still absorb a hard drive and reset it soft. It’s no slouch on offense either, and it’s an easy one to recommend.

$169.99 · Code MPB · Buy · UPA-A Comes in Elongated, Hybrid and Standard.

Against 11SIX24’s own Power 2 in the same Ultre shape, my Jelly Bean 2 swings 7 points heavier, carries more static weight, and trades most of the Power 2’s firepower for control. EMA foam is a core material that is new to me, and the stability it produces is the most interesting thing. The open question is…will you get a heavy one?

$109.99 · Code MPB Comes in Elongated, Hybrid (Flash) and Standard (Bloom).

Vatic put a new EverGrit surface on this line, and it is a real step up: every Tour shape measures rougher than any V-Sol Pro or Power that came before it, and the Bloom reads 9.38 Ra. The Elongated swings a little heavier than the V-Sol Pro V7 and sits more balanced (not head-heavy and not head-light). Serve speed and spin were just published on www.mattspickleball.com (I also re-ran the V-Sol Pro and Power series numbers and updated them.)

$119.99 · Code MPB · Buy · USAP approved Comes in Elongated, Hybrid and Widebody.

The MPP core is crisper than the EPP version: a sharper crack off the face and more immediate feedback on how clean you hit it. The face is smooth to the touch, and the spin still measures above average, so grit feel and spin output are not the same thing.

$239 · Code MPB · Buy · UPA-A Comes in Elongated only.

What the measurements show is the heaviest-swinging paddle Luzz makes, with the mass carried well out toward the tip, on a dual-density MPP and TPE core.

$195 · Code MPB · Buy · UPA-A Comes in Elongated.

It is dwelly for a carbon layup: you feel the ball load and you feel it release, and the trajectory matches what you intended.

$249.99 | Code MPB | Buy | USAP approved Comes in Elongated and Standard, with 2 new Hybrid shapes added this week.

This foam paddle doesn't play like most foam cores: you get clear feedback on how cleanly you made contact.

12 paddles were added to the website this week from 7 brands.

The 2 cheapest lines on this board, the $109.99 Spitfire and the $119.99 Turbo MPP, both grew in research, and the Spitfire grew more than anything else here. The 2 most expensive, the $249.99 Q2 and the $239 Inferno 2 M1, both fell, and both lost 2 spots. Every line on this board runs foam.

Code MPB works at every brand on this week’s board:

A $99 paddle still holds the top spot at #1, beating out paddle lines like the Jelly Bean 2 series cumulatively. Vatic’s Tour launch is the one I will be watching, since it went top 10 before a single number was on it and since it’s only been on the list for half of a week.

Matt

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