In a world of power paddles and twoey speedups, Matt Wright wins with fundamentals

Alex Lantz

Director of Content

Last Edited

Aug 11 2025

Category

News

The rise of pickleball -- and specifically pro pickleball -- has led to constant innovation and changes in strategy at the game's highest level over the past few years.

Instructional videos have flooded YouTube going over how to his this shot or that shot, when and where to speed up, when to lob, why you need a two-handed backhand dink/speedup combo, why you need to nuke your serve and so on and so forth.

But what if you just made all your third-shot drops and hit unattackable dinks on repeat?

Matt Wright -- now 48 years old -- showed us all this weekend that it's still possible to go pretty far with that game plan, even against the best players in the world.

I couldn't help but think of Tim Duncan, the NBA Hall-of-Famer, as I watched Wright navigate his way to the finals in men's doubles at the PPA Tour Bristol Open alongside partner Jaume Martinez Vich.

Duncan wasn't the fastest, didn't jump the highest, didn't have highlight dunks, rarely shot a three-pointer, and yet he's widely regarded as one of the greatest basketball players of all time. His defense and rebounding earned him the nickname "The Big Fundamental."

I propose that's what we start calling Wright, who continually does the simple things at an elite level.

This week he and Martinez Vich upset No. 2-seed Federico Staksrud/Hayden Patriquin in the quarterfinals, then backed it up with a win over No. 11 seed Tyson McGuffin/Max Freeman in the semifinals. They ultimately lost in the final on Sunday to Ben Johns and Gabe Tardio, but that doesn't make Wright's run any less impressive.

Wright, who has been playing pro pickleball for 9 years, now has 73 total medals on the PPA Tour -- that ranks No. 8 all time behind Anna Bright, Riley Newman, JW Johnson, Tyson McGuffin, Catherine Parenteau, Anna Leigh Waters and Ben Johns.

“It’s truly impressive," Johns said after Sunday's final. "I’ve played him for many years -- he’s an awesome player and an awesome guy -- so it was just really fun to see him in another final. I hope to see him in some more, and I hope I’m still moving that well at 48.”

Over Wright's career he has seen the game change drastically. The paddles of 2016 would be almost unrecognizable to most players today. Some of the shots being executed by the pros now had not even been considered a decade ago.

Read next: How I filled out my Major League Pickleball postseason awards ballot

And a new generation of younger, more athletic players has taken over the pro game, and even the amateur game to a certain extent -- or so we thought.

They even switched up the ball on him this week -- from the Vulcan to the LifeTime LT Pro 48 -- and Wright adjusted with ease just like he always has.

As I watched him this week, I couldn't help but chuckle as he floated his serves into the middle of the court, hit buttery third-shot drops, consistent dinks and displayed the elite hand speed that he has been known for over the years.

How can the game still be that easy? It's not, of course, but he certainly made it look that way.

Let that be a lesson to all of us: You don't need to reinvent the wheel and develop 100 different shots that you can pull from your shoetops to be successful. You just need to do the obvious things well, like getting to the kitchen line more than your opponents and limiting unforced errors.

When executed properly, those skills can take you pretty dang far -- just ask The Big Fundamental.

More news