In his 10 years as a pro pickleball player, Ben Johns has rarely lost as frequently in men’s doubles as he has in the past 2 months.

His current string of losses started in mid-September, when he teamed up with Federico Staksrud at the Arizona Open. Johns and Staksrud were bounced in the Round of 16 (their first match of the tournament because they had a double bye as the No. 1 seed). They lost to Nico Acevedo and Yuta Funemizu 11-4, 11-5 … not close.

Next was the Las Vegas Open. Johns made the final in all three divisions (men’s doubles, mixed doubles and singles) but lost in all three finals. In men’s doubles he was playing with his normal partner, Gabe Tardio, but they were beaten by Christian Alshon/Andrei Daescu 11-6, 11-8 on Championship Sunday. Not a terrible result, but a loss nonetheless.

The PPA Tour then made it’s debut in Chicago for the Chicago Cup, and Johns made his debut with Jack Sock — an intriguing partnership that was pretty far out of the norm for Johns, who can play with whoever he wants and has almost always played with another player who is considered to be a Top 5 or Top 10 player (Sock is currently No. 25 in the World Pickleball Rankings). They were knocked out in the Round of 32 by No. 27 seed Anouar Braham/Bruno Faletto — 8-11, 11-5, 11-3. Game 3 was never close, and Braham/Faletto looked like the better team for most of the match.

That gets us to last weekend, when Johns/Tardio lost in the men’s doubles final to Hayden Patriquin/Federico Staksrud at the PPA Tour Asia Hong Kong Slam. Final score: 11-6, 11-8. Another 2-game loss that wasn’t particularly close.

So what’s going on here? Is Johns dealing with an injury or some other factor that’s causing him to play worse than we’ve become accustomed to? Or has everybody else finally caught up?

We break down the latest loss in detail here.