A year ago Hunter Johnson won his first PPA singles title. Now he's No. 1 and looking to stay at the top

Alex Lantz

Director of Content

Last Edited

Sep 10 2025

Johnson changed how men's singles is played

Johnson's success has coincided with a major strategy shift that many other players have tried to copy in recent months.

Men's singles used to be about who could get to the net first, and almost everybody tried to come to the kitchen line after returning the serve.

But as the game has sped up in recent years and serves and passing shots have gotten bigger and bigger, Johnson ultimately found success by staying back longer and playing more of a baseline game.

"I think the margin of hitting a return and coming in is becoming smaller and smaller," he said. "I found that I was losing a handful of points in a game by missing a return or hitting a poor return and trying to rush and come to the net. So I figured staying back gave me a better chance to hit a good return and get them to come in off a bad ball or give myself a better option to come to the net on my own terms. Rather than rushing to the net and risk getting passed."

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That strategy has become more and more common in 2025, but Johnson is still one of the best at executing it. His passing shots are consistently low to the net, so he's able to keep ripping them until he finds the opportunity he's looking for.

He's even applied that strategy in doubles at times, especially during this year's Major League Pickleball season, where his team -- the Los Angeles Mad Drops -- was jokingly referred to as the Mad Drives because Johnson and then-teammate Quang Duong would drive the third, the fifth, the seventh, the ninth and so on until they got a ball they wanted to come in on or their opponent made an error.

So far this PPA Tour season Johnson has won three golds, two silvers and one bronze medal in men's singles, but he's still looking for his first "slam" of 2025, which could come this week at the PPA Tour Cincinnati Showcase.

The other two slams so far in 2025 -- the Masters in January and the Atlanta Pickleball Championships in May -- were won by Staksrud and Johns, respectively.

As the PPA Tour has developed over the years, a bigger emphasis has been placed on the four biggest events of the year -- similar to what you see in other sports like golf or tennis. Johnson is well aware of that and said he was looking at this week as a big opportunity to widen his lead in the points standings even further.

On Wednesday he defeated Donald Young 12-10, 11-1 to advance to the Round of 16, which will be played Thursday.

"I go into every tournament focused and wanting to win, but you definitely realize these are the bigger tournaments, so you go in there wanting to be at your best," he said. "You only have four slams in a year, so it's a way points-wise to separate yourself and jump above the crowd, as well as gain some momentum and confidence."

New year, new rivals

When Johnson was climbing the standings last year, he was the chaser trying to gain ground on the more established players like Staksrud, Johns and Garnett. Now he's the one being chased, and it seems like every week a new player is emerging on the scene to take their shot.

John Lucian Goins won back-to-back singles titles with wins at the Bristol Open and Walgreens Open in Las Vegas. Other relative newcomers like Rafael Lenhard, Grayson Goldin, Adam Harvey and Alex Crum have all made deep runs in singles in recent months. Chris Haworth also recently switched over the the PPA Tour. And there's still the old guard to deal with every week as well -- Staksrud, Johns, Christian Alshon, Jaume Martinez Vich, Michael Loyd, Jack Sock, etc.

"Every month it seems like people are just getting better and better," Johnson said. "But I think for me, a strength of mine is being able to find opponents' weaknesses and figure out how to beat them. So I think as these players come in and the more you play them, the more it's an advantage for me because I can start to figure out how to beat them consistently. But it's still definitely a challenge. It's only getting harder and harder every week. So you can never take anything for granted and you've got to just keep working hard. You can't be satisfied."

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