Toronto Hit Top Gear as CNPL’s Road to Waterloo Changes in Burnaby

Toronto United produced the best weekend of the CNPL Season Finale, going 6-0 in Burnaby as London Smash suffered a 4-0 defeat to Grand River Rapids. With the playoffs less than a month away, the championship picture suddenly looks considerably less settled.

For much of the Canadian National Pickleball League season, London Smash had supplied the simplest measure of the field. They kept winning, secured their playoff place early and arrived at the final regular-season weekend having produced the most dominant split of the CNPL season.

Then Burnaby changed the picture.

Toronto United went 6-0 across the Season Finale, won 20 of their 24 individual games and secured direct passage into the second round of the playoffs. London still produced five victories from six and earned the other bye, but their weekend ended with Grand River Rapids beating them 4-0, a result which did rather more than spoil an otherwise excellent two days.

Three weeks before the championship is decided in Waterloo, the CNPL suddenly looks less settled than it did.

There were individual landmarks too. Anne-Sophie Courteau and Ernesto Fajardo both reached 100 career CNPL game victories, significant numbers in a league still young enough to be establishing what longevity looks like.

Yet Burnaby’s more immediate importance was competitive.

Toronto did not merely keep pace with London. For one weekend, they were better.

Toronto leave Burnaby 6-0

There is a difference between surviving an undefeated weekend and controlling one, and the official CNPL results from Burnaby make clear which version this was.

United played six team matches and won all six, going 20-4 across the individual games with a point differential of +85, the best record at the event. They beat Montreal Lions 3-1, swept Detroit-Windsor Drive 4-0, dismantled Northern Lights 4-0 and closed their campaign with a 3-1 victory over Grand River Rapids, the team challenging them for second place.

The individual combinations were equally revealing. Matthew Kawamoto and Maximilian Wild finished as the event’s leading open pair with a 5-1 record and +29 point differential, while Maria Klokotzky and Kawamoto went 6-0 in mixed doubles.

That gave Toronto more than one reliable route through a team match, and their strongest performances contained very little waste. Against Detroit-Windsor they won the opening three games 21-11, 21-16 and 21-16 before completing the sweep 21-17. Northern Lights, fighting to secure their own playoff place, could not take a game from them either, losing 21-17, 21-10, 21-16 and 21-16.

Across those two matches alone, United went 8-0.

This is the sort of margin which matters when trying to distinguish genuine championship form from a favourable run of results. Toronto were not repeatedly leaning on rotational-singles escapes or squeezing through one-point finishes. At their best in Burnaby, they were removing the need for a fifth game altogether.

That changes the conversation before Waterloo.

London’s weekend was almost as good. Almost.

London’s 5-1 record should not disappear simply because of what happened at the end.

They survived a 3-2 examination from Detroit-Windsor in their opening match, winning the rotational-singles decider 21-20, then beat York Yeti twice, Montreal Lions 3-1 and Vancouver Owls 3-1.

Against the Owls, the Smash responded to losing the second game by taking the next two 21-16 and 21-9. Against Montreal, they turned a 1-1 match into a 3-1 victory by winning the final two games 21-14 and 21-10.

That ability to find victories across different match situations has been part of London’s strength throughout the season.

At the Central Split in August, the Smash went 5-0 and 18-3 in games. Courteau and Aibika Kalsarieva finished that event 5-0 together in women’s doubles with a +27 point differential, while Courteau and Ryan Torresin went 3-0 in mixed.

London were not being carried by one pairing.

That is important because the CNPL format rewards depth differently from a conventional doubles tournament. Winning one outstanding matchup does not solve a team. Opponents have to find enough favourable combinations across women’s doubles, open doubles and mixed before, if required, dealing with rotational singles.

London have spent much of the season making that difficult.

Burnaby nevertheless supplied a reminder that their margin is not permanent.

Grand River beat them 21-16, 21-19, 21-16 and 21-13.

No fifth game. No 21-20 escape. No opportunity for London’s depth to repair an early deficit.

A 4-0 sweep.

Grand River provide the warning

That result may prove more important than Grand River’s 3-3 weekend record suggests.

The Rapids were inconsistent across the Finale, losing enough matches to miss the direct route into Round 2, but they also produced the most emphatic victory anybody managed against London all weekend.

For Waterloo, that matters.

A playoff bracket does not ask which team was most consistent across an entire summer. It asks whether a team can survive the opponent immediately in front of it, and Grand River have just demonstrated that London’s strongest regular-season form does not make them untouchable.

Their problem is the route.

While London and Toronto wait in Round 2, Grand River must first negotiate a meeting with Northern Lights, who reached the postseason by finding their own late surge in Burnaby.

The Lights beat Montreal Lions 3-1 and Vancouver Owls 3-1 to clinch their place, finishing the weekend 4-2 overall. Their event point differential was actually negative at -6 despite that winning record, which offers a useful description of how they reached Waterloo: not through sustained domination, but by winning enough of the matches that mattered.

That is enough.

Now they have to do it again.

Courteau and Fajardo reach 100

Within all of that movement came two numbers that deserve their own recognition.

Courteau and Fajardo both reached 100 career CNPL game victories during the Season Finale. Courteau had entered Burnaby on 94, one victory ahead of Fajardo on 93, with CNPL identifying both among the leading candidates to become the first players in league history to reach the century.

In a competition still building its history, the value of 100 wins is partly cumulative. It cannot be produced by one extraordinary tournament. It requires seasons of availability, changing partners, different matchups and enough sustained quality to continue adding victories while rosters and opponents move around you.

Courteau’s current season has provided a good illustration of how those numbers accumulate.

At London’s Central Split, she went unbeaten alongside Kalsarieva in women’s doubles and unbeaten alongside Torresin in mixed. In one 3-2 victory over Vancouver, Courteau and Kalsarieva won the women’s doubles 21-18 before Courteau and Torresin added a 21-19 mixed victory, with London eventually surviving 21-20 in rotational singles.

Those are the smaller contributions from which a century is eventually built.

Fajardo’s route has been different. The former Montreal Lions captain and first overall pick in the 2024 CNPL Draft only joined London in late July, arriving in a trade for Xavier Richard after helping Montreal win consecutive championships in 2024 and 2025.

Now two players with very different CNPL histories occupy the same Smash roster and the same 100-win club.

Their next concern is adding another kind of number.

A title.

The playoff advantage has been earned

London and Toronto now receive something particularly valuable at a three-day championship: time.

Both advance directly to Round 2 when the CNPL playoffs begin in Waterloo from September 25 to 27, while the teams beneath them have to play their way through the opening stage.

That is more than a reward on paper.

Short-format team competition can turn on fatigue, matchup exposure and the simple accumulation of pressure. Grand River and Northern Lights will have to show their hand before either London or Toronto plays an elimination match, while the leading pair can prepare for opponents who have already been forced into championship mode.

Toronto earned that position by being the best team in Burnaby.

London earned it through the body of work that came before and another five-win weekend.

The distinction between the two is what makes Waterloo considerably more interesting now than it appeared a few weeks ago.

Burnaby changed the question

Had London completed another perfect weekend, the playoff story would have been obvious.

Who can stop the Smash?

That is no longer quite the right question.

Toronto arrive after a 6-0 weekend in which they lost only four games. Grand River arrive knowing they have just swept London 4-0. Northern Lights arrive having won four of six when their postseason place was on the line.

London still have the depth, the direct playoff route and two of the newest members of the CNPL’s 100-win club.

But Burnaby stripped away something more valuable than a perfect weekend.

Certainty.

For most of the season, everybody else had been trying to catch London. By the time the CNPL reaches Waterloo, the Smash may find themselves looking sideways at Toronto as well as over their shoulder.

Further Reading

• Anne-Sophie Courteau Already Had a Career. Pickleball Gave Her a Reason to Risk It.
• Latest pickleball news from around the world
• Tournament coverage and results
• Rankings and player profiles
• Regional pickleball coverage

Chris Beaumont

Founder and Editor-in-Chief

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chris Beaumont is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of World Pickleball Magazine. Chris follows the global game closely, reporting on the latest news, developments, stories and tournaments from all five continents. He also hosts the World Pickleball Podcast, interviewing people at…

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