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January 23, 2025

King of the Court

Ben Johns, 25, is the greatest player in the history of the sport. He sat down with Pickleball Magazine to discuss what’s next.

By Matthew Schwartz

The greatest pickleball player ever is always thinking ahead. On the court, Ben Johns is thinking about his opponent’s next shot. It’s one reason he became the top-ranked player when the Professional Pickleball Association (PPA) unveiled its first official rankings five years ago.

 

Johns has won nearly 150 tournaments in Men’s Singles, Men’s Doubles and Mixed Doubles since turning pro in 2018. In 2019, he won an astonishing 108 consecutive singles matches and 22 straight mixed doubles tournaments. He became the first player ever to win the triple crown (gold in Men’s Singles, Men’s Doubles and Mixed Doubles) at the prestigious Tournament of Champions.

 

Off the court, Johns thinks about his next business venture and life beyond pickleball. He has a sense of self that is atypical for most 25-year-olds. Johns has diverse plans that include retiring from professional play sooner rather than later.

 

“The range is from three to eight years,” Johns says when asked when he will retire. “I’d say five is realistic.” Then adds, “It could be two, who knows?”

 

Johns makes it clear he loves pickleball and is privileged to be one of the sport’s first transcendent stars. He’s appreciative of the $2.5 million he makes from endorsements, his pickleball-related businesses, and tournament purses. While still in college, Johns signed a deal with Franklin Sports and later with JOOLA Pickleball. Having majored in materials science and engineering at the University of Maryland, he learned a lot about paddle construction.

 

His knowledge of materials science crossed over well in terms of pickleball paddle design. “It was certainly an interest to me in college that I could learn something about materials science and engineering that may apply to paddle design. I was pretty much entirely involved [with my signature paddle]. I told them what materials I wanted used, the paddle dimensions and paddle shape.” A year later, with the Ben Johns Hyperion CFS paddle selling as well as he was playing, JOOLA inked him to a lifetime contract. Terms were not disclosed.

 

With all his success on the court, Johns sounds more excited discussing venture capital, artificial intelligence and his entrepreneurial endeavors than he does dinks and drives.

 

He’s the middle of seven in the family. His longtime doubles partner Collin, 31, is the oldest; Hannah, 29, is the PPA Tour’s TV reporter and a front office executive; Lilly, 27, is a dental hygienist; Maggie, 23, is getting her doctorate in piano performance at the Cleveland Institute of Music; Georgia, 21, works in supply chain management and manages Ben’s Pickleball Getaways company; and 8-year-old Violet is being homeschooled by their mom, Heather.

 

The siblings are close, and Ben is relaxing at Lilly’s home in Tampa, on one of his six off days per month. “I think doing the same thing in terms of the same tournaments, seeing the same people all the time… all of that—it does get wearing and repetitive.” He spends 14 days a month drilling and 10 days playing in tournaments.

 

In a wide-ranging interview, Johns also talks about the change in doubles partner from his brother Collin, the pressure of being the best, his pregame routines, his girlfriend (and one big reason he loves her), his obsession with a trading card game and the fantasy genre, the only person he idolizes, his favorite food (he’s a major foodie) and TV shows.

 

Johns embraces being the best. When he emerged as the top-ranked player, his father, Mark, told him, “There are very few people who get to be on the verge of a sport that’s burgeoning and you get to ride that wave of a sport becoming a very big thing from a very small thing, and that’s rare for anyone to experience.”

 

Johns says he doesn’t feel pressure to win every match. “It’s more that I know I can win every match, and to some extent I expect to win every match. You of course cannot be perfect, and you cannot win every match, but those are my expectations in any given match.”

 

His pregame routine is mostly warm-up based, as he puts it: “Movement—lateral, forward, backward, various band work, dynamic stretching… I don’t really have any mental routines other than to be prepared.”

 

When Johns loses, pickleball pundits looking for a chink in his armor say he’s on the way down. “I personally don’t really read or watch or care about any of that,” he says. “It doesn’t really matter what other people think or what other people want.”

 

At the end of 2024, Johns was No. 2 in the PPA’s Men’s Singles rankings behind Argentina’s Federico Staksrud, No. 1 with his brother Collin in Men’s Doubles, and No. 1 in Mixed Doubles, playing alongside Anna Leigh Waters—establishing the top mixed doubles pair in the sport.

 

In December, Johns announced a new men’s doubles partner, 19-year-old Bolivian sensation Gabe Tardio.

 

“Collin and I have achieved so much as a team together, and I’m really proud of what we’ve accomplished,” he says. “Changeups in life and in sports can be a refreshing thing. We feel like this decision will help us find new purpose, create variety, and reengage us in the sport we love so much. This is not necessarily the end of our partnership for good, just a healthy adjustment for the time being. We’ll always be brothers first and part of each other’s pickleball legacy. We’re excited to see what 2025 holds for both of us.”

 

Johns is figuring things out about his future, and playing pickleball is only part of the plan.

 

“I have a theory that the more experiences you have, the more you’re living life, so I never want to spend too much time doing the same thing, even as amazing as pickleball is,” he explains.

 

Johns grew up in the small Maryland town of Laytonsville (population 572) on a 12-acre lot that included a dirt tennis court and tennis practice facilities in a barn. His father is a software designer. The seven Johns children were homeschooled by their mother, who stressed reading, nature and organic learning.

 

As a 16- and 17-year-old, Johns earned college credits at a community college then enrolled in business school at Maryland. After one year, he changed his major to Materials Science and Engineering. “I figured out that in business school they emphasize it’s who you know, not what you know—and I understand that’s definitely true—but I came to school to learn things, not meet people necessarily,” he recalls. “I want to learn very real things and I thought, ‘This major is going to do that for me.’” He graduated in 2022 with a 3.81 GPA.

 

Johns lives in Austin, Texas, with his girlfriend of nearly two and a half years. Collin and Hannah live nearby. Ben is a major foodie and says of his girlfriend, “She is the best cook I’ve met. She makes the best dinners.” He adds with a laugh, “It’s why I date her.” They met through mutual friends. She didn’t know who Johns was and he liked that. “She doesn’t play pickleball and doesn’t really watch it or know anything about it, to be honest.”

 

Johns’ enjoyment of researching how things work extends to his eating habits. He not only reads restaurant reviews on Yelp and Google, he keeps a list of his favorite restaurants in every city in which he plays. “I’m a big fan of reviews and making sure your meals are good. There’s never a reason to have a bad meal.”

 

Asian food is his favorite. Although he lives in barbecue-mad Texas, Johns says, “I don’t love barbecue mostly because it’s all similar and it’s pretty heavy.” He enjoys making spinach dip and chili that his sister Hannah raves about. He mostly avoids junk food, and at 6’1” keeps his weight at 190, but admits to having a longtime addiction to Goldfish crackers.

 

When Johns returns home after a tournament, he and his girlfriend don’t discuss pickleball: “She’s like, ‘Hey, I’m ready to make dinner and then let’s do something fun.’ You know, that’s what I appreciate.”

 

Johns also admits to an obsession with the fantasy trading card game Magic: The Gathering. He says, “It’s a very complex, complicated game that I picked up when I was 11. I was pretty much obsessed with it and played it non-stop from 11 to 17.” He still plays when he can. The game is online, so his opponents have no idea who they’re playing against.

 

His taste in television shows and books skews heavily toward the fantasy genre as well. His favorite show is “Game of Thrones,” and he’s read all the books in the related series. “I’m a very thorough fantasy book reader,” Johns says. For lighter fare he enjoys the sitcom “New Girl.”

 

Johns’ taste in music is unusual for his age. “I like late ‘70s and early ‘80s classic rock,” he says. “My favorite artist is Fleetwood Mac. I like tons of songs from them. I also have a considerable amount of Taylor Swift on my playlist.”

 

There is one person he idolizes and wants to meet: Tesla CEO and billionaire Elon Musk. “I know maybe some of his ideas seem crazy to people, but he has a knack for getting things done, so I admire that,” Johns explains. “You need people with crazy ideas to do crazy things.”

 

When asked if he would go up in space in one of Musk’s rockets, Johns replied, “If Elon invited me to do almost anything, I would do it.” He drives a 2021 Tesla S and thinks electric cars will continue to get “more efficient, cheaper, and more predominant.”

 

Johns adds, “I like entrepreneurship; I like people who are entrepreneurs.” He is one himself. He co-owns three companies: Pickleball 360, an instructional video subscription service; Pickleball Getaways, which provides vacations with pickleball instruction; and Johns Design & Consulting, which designs and plans pickleball courts.

 

Being into cryptocurrency, Johns chose to be paid a portion of his nearly $10,000 in prize money in Ethereum when he won the PPA Tour’s Orange County Cup in 2023. He was the first pickleball player to be paid that way.

 

Johns turns 26 in March and says that as he gets older, he will play in more promotional pickleball events rather than competitive tournaments.

 

And there’s no doubt that Ben Johns will always be thinking about his next moves, off the pickleball court as well as on it.  •


 

Matthew Schwartz spent 40 years in television news and won more than 200 awards, including four Emmys and four Edward R. Murrow awards for investigative reporting. His 2020 memoir, “Confessions of an Investigative Reporter,” was an Amazon #1 bestseller. He writes a weekly blog for Hudef Sport and plays pickleball every day.

 

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