Ben Johns opens up about difficult split with brother and doubles partner Collin Johns

The Kitchen Team

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Last Edited

Dec 01 2025

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Nearly a year after Ben Johns and Collin Johns shocked the pickleball world by announcing they were ending their doubles partnership, Ben Johns has opened up about the difficult decision to split with his brother.

On a recent episode of Pickleballers, Johns looked back on the duo's dominance over the years and also their regression in 2024 that ultimately led to the breakup.

"Being able to play with your brother in a professional sport is an incredible privilege," he said. "... But I do remember having conversations where it was like, 'You do realize this is unsustainable, right?' Because we were winning so much, and it almost shouldn't be happening that much."

Johns said even during a stretch of several wins in a row in late 2023 and early 2024, the brothers were making an extra effort to savor the good times because they knew it wouldn't always be that way. Sure enough, they started to lose more in the middle and later parts of 2024 before deciding to split at the start of 2025.

"We were losing a little bit more, and then of course we experienced the inevitable, which is that no professional athlete wants to be losing," he said. "So generally neither of us were happy about it, so we had to balance the perspective of, 'This was bound to happen at some point' and then the natural reaction of, 'This sucks, we hate it.'"

Johns also said he thinks Collin's play style was hurt by the rise of modern power paddles, which also could have contributed to the more frequent losses in late 2024. Collin was always more of a patient, defensive-minded player whose objective was to keep points alive long enough for Ben to get a good opportunity to be aggressive and finish points.

As the game sped up, it became harder to be successful playing that way.

"I just feel like there's certain people and certain game styles that unfortunately were not complimented by (changing) technology," he said. "... Some players and some assets and some skills got diminished because of certain things you're able to do now."

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