PPA Tour Mesa Cup – 5 Takeaways – Is Ben Johns Washed?

Recency bias be damned, this had to be one of the best PPA events in the history of the tour. There were a ton of great matches and unexpected results, which is something that the highest level of pro pickleball has been sorely missing in big matches over the past couple of years.

With all the chaos happening in the draws these days, one thing to keep an eye on is the amount of experience we are seeing from players going deep in these tournaments. Kate Fahey, in singles, was the only person to reach the semi-finals in Mesa who is “new” to pickleball. As the competition gets steeper, we may be at the dawn of a new day where it is not as easy for very talented players like Anna Bright and Christian Alshon to ascend as quickly to the top, especially on the men’s side. That’s how it goes for a sport that is still in its infancy but is gradually maturing in front of our eyes.

We won’t be doing takeaways for every tournament but when there are things we want to talk about, we’ll bring some thoughts to the world. We’ve got 5 takeaways for the electric PPA Mesa Cup.

1. Is Ben John Washed? – The click-baity title for this article is written somewhat facetiously, but with a kernel of seriousness.  The only discipline where Ben Johns is ranked #1 on the PPA Tour right now is mixed doubles. He exits the Mesa Cup having lost a gold medal men’s doubles match to Christian Alshon/Andrei Daescu in 5 games as well as a tight, 3-game mixed doubles semi-final to Anna Bright/Dekel Bar. As there remains a large gap between Anna Leigh Waters and the next best woman in pickleball, there are legitimate questions as to whether Ben Johns can remain, or even if Ben still is, the #1 man in pro pickleball.

It should be fairly obvious that Ben Johns is not washed. Two very close losses in men’s and mixed does not mean he is cooked. Ben is very good at pickleball and there’s little question he will remain relevant in the sport for the foreseeable future. What is harder to determine is whether Ben can stay on top as he has since he won Nationals with Kyle Yates in 2019, who is no longer competing in 2025.

For a sport that is seeing such an influx in talent, it has already been a Herculean feat for Ben to have dominated the sport for as long as he has. The game has changed massively since the end of 2019 and Ben has been there every step of the way as the top dog of the sport.

A big change for Ben has been his slowly diminishing ability to dominate the court the way he used to in men’s and mixed. The improved level of play across the board has made it significantly harder for Ben to control the court and guarantee wins for he and his partner like he used to. We are seeing the trend of the right side player taking more court and initiating more offense, which is connected to the trend of all players taking more risk in terms of initiating offense. Rather than the passive approach that ruled the day for Ben the past few years.

The trouble for Ben is that he is not truly elite from a physical trait’s standpoint. If you were trying to Frankstein your way to building the perfect pickleball player, you would give them Ben’s mind – his ability to solve the game and the mental toughness he exhibits when his back is against the wall. What physical tools of Ben’s would you give to this created player, though?

Ben’s hands are very good, but they are not the best. His touch is high end, but it is not the best. His power is very good, but it is not the very best. He has all the shots but, outside of his backhand roll, there are players out there with better shots. His movement is underrated and efficient, but there are guys out there that are quicker and faster.

Tom Brady talked before the Super Bowl that his superpower was knowing what was going to happen on the field before it happened. We probably take for granted how good Ben is at knowing what is going to happen on the pickleball court before it happens, which is his true superpower in the sport.

The most impressive aspect of Ben’s weekend was how he doubled down on his revamped cat and mouse singles strategy to win his first singles title since Virginia Beach last year. It was one thing to play cat and mouse from 2018 through 2023 in singles, but to do it successfully in 2025 against Christian Alshon, Connor Garnett and Hunter Johnson is crazy special. 2025 pro singles has mostly become a battle of who can hit the best ground strokes and who can cover ground strokes better. Except that Ben Johns is out here hard rolling two-hand backhand dipping drops and finessing his way to victory.

Ben is currently in an adjustment period. He has failed to win gold in two events with brand new partners, who both want to take more court from the right side. You have to think hat Ben is going to start taking more risk and speeding up off the bounce from both wings, similarly to what we are seeing with Andrei Daescu, a guy who spent most of his career being a more conservative ball-maker. Until we give Ben more time to see if he can figure it out with new and more dynamic partners, it’s too early to say that he won’t be the best man in pickleball at the end of 2025.

Ben isn’t going to win every singles title from here on out with his reinvigorated game, but the changes he brought to the singles court this weekend might be the number one reason Ben should keep getting the benefit of the doubt, even as he continues to lose more matches. It is impossible for Ben to continue as the best player in the world forever, but his proficiency in learning from the past is second to none.

The days of Ben Johns winning as a foregone conclusion in every tournament are most likely gone for good. However, when the aliens are invading Earth and we need to win a game of pickle to save the planet, we should not be counting out that Ben Johns may very well be our top choice to compete against our potential alien overlords at this time in 2026.

2. Special Events – There were so many good matches over the past week in Mesa. Too many that we aren’t going to bother listing them here. With that being said, one issue that tour events continue to have is that they all feel the same, regardless of how good the matches are. It is difficult for a fan to be able to differentiate between a standard event and more prominent event on the schedule.

I agree but now it may be time to revise the format from 3/5 to 2/3 for non majors. It’s great to have competitive matches as it wasn’t always the case. The original rsn to go 3/5 was to elongate the day. There needs to be some differentiation btwn majors and reg events.

— Maggie Remynse (@MaggieMaeRem) February 23, 2025

Championship Court generally looks the same. Championship Sunday is the same format for each tournament. It doesn’t feel as though the stakes for any given tournament is bigger than another.

Thankfully, it looks like the Sundays of Ben and Anna Leigh dominating every event might finally be over, which would solve a separate, longstanding issue the PPA has had to deal with.

Matt Klitch, aka Matty Pickles, pointed out on X that progression draws help differentiate PPA Cups and Slams from Open events. Conversely, we had to go to the PPA website to make sure we understood the difference between the types of events. As we have brought up many times in the past, if the two of us are having problems following what the heck is going on, there is little chance that anyone else has it sorted out.

Former pro player, Maggie Remynse, suggested on Sunday that the format should be revised from best 3 of 5 games to best 2 out of 3 games for non-majors. This is something we had suggested in a similar capacity back when the progression draw was first implemented at 2023 Nationals where all the matches were played as best 3 out of 5 games. We both agree wholeheartedly with Maggie, and going back to best of 3’s for the smaller ‘Opens’ is an easy way for the PPA to make their bigger events feel more special.

A suggestion for the PPA would be to make it a best of 3 for the whole tournament for regular open events (1000 points), a progression draw and best of 5 Championship Sunday for the Cup events (1500 points), and a progression draw and best of 5 for either all matches or all quarterfinal, semi-final and Championship Sunday matches for a Slam (2000 points)?

The best of 5 matches on Sunday can be lots of fun but it is a huge investment to ask of fans for every tournament. In tennis, the only featured championship matches are for singles and the finals are scheduled that the women go on Saturday and the men go on Sunday. The only sport that people sit around all day to watch is football and maybe the weekend of a major event for golf (i.e. Masters, US Open, PGA Championship, the British Open).

In an age where capturing fan engagement is a big talking point given the waning attention span of its consumers, pro pickleball is asking its fans to stick with a product for hours on end every tournament. If you can differentiate the best of 5 game matches for bigger events, you might be able to create more buzz for the weekends you want fans to care about the most. It’s also probably not a bad thing that best of 3 game finals at regular events could lead to some more funky results.

The PPA has always done a good job of playing around with new formats to find what works. The progression draw was another shift away from the traditional pickleball tournament model that also proven to be a big positive for the PPA. Hopefully they keep working to make the special events more special.

3. Make it a Real Sport – Memes of Pickleball posted this horrendous footage of the bronze medal match between Anna Leigh Waters/Ben Johns and Catherine Parenteau/Federico Staksrud. To say that this match was a joke would be a complete understatement. It was an embarrassing display of pickleball put on by Ben Johns and Federico Staksrud.

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A match like this is not going to be the difference in whether people ever decide they want to watch pro pickleball. That’s not the point of calling this out. At the same time, when you are the faces of a sport and being paid incredibly well to play a game for a living, you have to do better than this. Yes, these are long tournaments amidst a long season of tournaments. Whether bronze medal matches need to be played is a different question altogether. But the fact is that every time these players step on the court is an opportunity to showcase pickleball in a positive light.

Instead, this bronze medal match made the NBA all-star game look like it had the intensity of the Super Bowl.

There is going to be a time when Ben Johns is not good enough to have zero consequences for half-assing his way through a pickleball match, to put it lightly.  Maybe when it gets to that point, Ben will be out on the sport altogether. Nevertheless, you cannot be out here in one capacity yelling “make it a real sport” because a ball isn’t bouncing exactly how you want it to, and then in another capacity you’re messing around in a bronze medal match as if you’re playing with grandma and grandpa on Thanksgiving.

It’s not a coincidence that the two players who appeared to check out and give up on their respective MLP teams at various times in 2024 were Ben Johns and Federico Staksrud.

You want to make it a real sport? How about let’s start with treating it like it is a real sport?

4. No More Appeals to the Head Referee – In Saturday’s semi-final, Hunter Johnson and Federico Staksrud had a lengthy delay at a crucial juncture in game 2. Already down a game, Hunter Johnson was up 11-10 in game 2 and he hit a ball that Staksrud called out. Hunter proceeded to challenge the call and would lose a point if he was wrong because he was out of challenges. The call was upheld, except that Hunter then proceeded to appeal the call to the always active in the Facebook comments section and PPA head referee, Mr. Don Stanley. Don Stanley overruled the replay call to give Hunter Johnson game 1 – it led to some less than ideal reactions and controversial comments from Federico Staksrud.

Regardless of the correct call, it is ridiculous that there is a mechanism where players can make a further appeal if they don’t like the result of the challenge. We had a similar situation arise last year in a match involving Zane Navratil and Matt Wright, which also caused a lengthy delay. Along the theme of making it a real sport, we cannot be out here demanding a referee with more authority to make a Czar-like ruling when a decision is already made. This has happened at times in MLP as well. Zane reflected on the events on X:

If the call is wrong, then the call is wrong. We’ll try to do better the next time. If we don’t trust that the referees assigned to the court can make the necessary decisions, maybe they shouldn’t be put in that position in the first place. It’s not good for the players nor is it good for the product to have fans waiting around for 10 or 15 minutes, or more, for a second appeal. That’s how you get people to turn off the TV and never tune in again.

If the UPA has forgotten, we should avoid trying to be more like the NBA in 2025. Challenges are no exception.

5. Mesa loves the Johnson’s – In 2023, the Johnson siblings beat Anna Leigh Waters and Ben Johns en route to their first PPA title in Mesa. In 2025, the Johnson siblings knocked off the team that beat Anna Leigh/Ben in Mesa, Anna Bright/Dekel Bar, in a thrilling 5-game match for their second career mixed PPA title. That’s all. That’s the takeaway. Thanks for reading today!

Edit: The Johnson’s only beat ALW and Ben in Mesa of 2023. Their first title was in Newport in 2024 against Tyson McGuffin and Lacy Schneemann.

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