INSTRUCTION
PHOTO COURTESY CARL SCHMITS OF PROPICKLEBALL
It ’ s Time to Change Your Outdated View on Pickleball Singles
By Frank Anthony Davis
My intention for this article is not to convince you that you can become a top pro singles player or even become a singles player at all — although I do highly recommend it . I want to talk about the game of singles . More specifically , how it has evolved over the past three to four years and why it ’ s more deserving of your attention .
First , let ’ s start with some pickleball history . In the past , singles was primarily a game involving three , maybe four shots per rally . A serve , a return , a passing shot . If the passing shot missed , the point was over ; if the passing shot was good , the point was over . Boring .
Then it slowly started to change . You probably didn ’ t notice . An active singles player at the time , I barely noticed the subtle difference . What did I see ? Or rather who did I see ? His name is Marcin Rozpedski , and you ’ ve probably heard of him . He is a six-time major champion and the only singles player to win all three majors in the same year .
While studying Marcin ’ s game from a distance , I started to notice his shot selection — especially in the “ 5th ball .” He didn ’ t rush ; the pressure was there — his opponent hit a great volley . But he didn ’ t rush , he never rushed . This calmness under pressure gave Marcin the ability to place his shots more accurately . So instead of going for another all-out passing shot on his 5th , he would push the ball to a neutral area on the court . Strategically this worked miracles for his game . It kept him alive in the point , it bought him time to reposition , and it allowed his opponent to make a mistake .
It turns out that most of us weren ’ t used to making a 5th ball volley and , for a while at least , didn ’ t know what to do with it . Marcin wasn ’ t necessarily hitting 5th or
Tyson McGuffin and Frank A . Davis at Nationals . Photo courtesy Carl Schmits of ProPickleball .
3rd ball drops into the kitchen yet , but it didn ’ t matter — he was winning in dominant fashion .
Enter Ben Johns . I remember watching his game for the first time at the 2016 US Open . Super-talented with super-fast hands and flat groundstrokes that effortlessly cut through the air . He was good , but by no means was he the Ben we know today .
Later that year , I noticed Ben implementing the same “ no rushing ” style I saw in Marcin ’ s game . Always calm , always making precise choices with shot selection . Except there was a difference — he wasn ’ t pushing the ball when rushed , like Marcin . He was using angles to place and drop the ball into the kitchen , like doubles . Sometimes he even did it on 3rds ! Which was unheard of in singles . Not only was it working , but somehow it felt impossible to defend . I didn ’ t understand why it worked ; I just knew that it did .
Around this time , Ben would go on to win his first singles major at the US Open . I only mention this because I believe it was vital for the growth of singles as a whole . Ben coasting through the draw using this new strategy caught the attention of the top singles players . Almost all of us started adopting this strategy and working it into our games . I began to notice even some of the most aggressive players in the game hitting drops into the kitchen occasionally .
This was just the beginning . Over the next few years , Ben and Tyson McGuffin completely separated themselves from the pack . They each utilize their unique takes on this strategy , which has since been dubbed “ The Cat and Mouse Game .”