So cool to have such a wide ranging, long form interview with Ben. I was already a fan of his play, but he’s one of humblest, most gracious, sincere GOATs of any sport.
Another one for the books. Having Ben on really opened the door for anyone. This was a big pod. Any taboo people were afraid of (albeit justified) should be shaken off. Lets see more pros! We wanna hear what you have to say.
@@morekingofthecourt Big H for sure, Anna Bright, Travis Rettenmaier, Andre Daescu, Lea Jansen always good. Jim Kloss eventually, but you guys have some growing to do before he would entertain it im sure.
A better analogy for the spring effect of paddles is one that golf uses. The max COR of all driver’s is standardized, regardless of sex. With that said, pickleball should also adopt one standardized spring effect for all paddles, regardless of sex. Safety should be a priority!
There’s way too many games to watch at once at MLP events. You literally can’t watch them all. Feels more like the Olympics, where you just have to pick some things to watch and catch highlights of others.
Great interview. Could have done without the eating during the interview but to each his own. I like how Ben acknowledges that future generations of players may look back at his records and call them into question. This is something that many of today’s sport superstars would never admit. I was impressed that Ben has future plans outside of pickleball, understands that his reign has a finite lifespan, and is being very realistic and preparing for the future. Smart young man and not too shabby at pickleball either!
Just like in golf the equipment and their companies will always drive the sport. But unlike golf you can't change the playing field to mitigate the equipment. The answer IMHO is in the ball. For safety reasons you could use a restricted flight / speed ball for mixed playing. A requirement of some type of unobtrusive protective eye wear would greatly help. This needs to be addressed before someone gets seriously hurt.
With all of the new paddle-gate or whatever they’re calling it. You might consider is an open division, where there is still a pro-division which is for the elite players, and the all of the paddles would all have to be inspected prior to the start of the tournament. On the other side(open division), you could basically do whatever you want and use whatever paddles you want. This can be adjusted whichever way seen fit, but overall it would provide a decent incentive(money) for say 5.0 players that haven’t made that jump to pro yet. This give other players a chance to compete for some money, they’ll make less than pro. I only suggest this, because as I’m sure you’ve heard, that players are sick of the same people winning at every tournament. Even players that don’t have all of the endorsements would be able to at least break even for the registration and pay for their stay at each tournament.
I still root for Ben Johns at virtually every match. I just love his smooth style and calm demeanor. If JW is on the other side? Then I flip allegiance.
Tyler just an observation, there were a couple times your cut off Ben and didn't let him finish his thought. happens to all of us but just wanted to point this out for future guest interviews. great interview nonetheless.
Jimmy and Tyler, Can I get your take on the viability of the NPL league. Considering investing and want the perspective of you both. And Jimmy, I'd happily pay for your time for an offline convo.
This was great. All except the part about rally scoring...it felt like there was some tap dancing happening there. If rally scoring was so great why does it switch back at the most critical part part of the game? Answer: because rally scoring is just a lot of time wasting nonsense we endure to give the losing team's fans some hope.
I think for MLP, it serves its purpose, perfectly. On the traditional tournament side, I'm a little more hesitant to want it to come to those tournaments...for now.
Rally vs traditional scoring as far as the underdog is concerned is not a fair comparison imo at least when u look at tyestats tim parks showed. The mlp match ups we see are almost never the well oiled teams we see in ppa and that plays a part in the surprises we see in mlp. Let ppa run a tournament with rally scoring and we ll see the same faces on the podium
Ben “I still manage to pass people (without a power paddle)” Uhhhh yeah? Because you’re Ben Johns. You can hit passing shots on a paddle from Target, and they don’t even sell paddles.
Different paddle specs for men vs. women is one of the most idiotic ideas I've ever heard of but I guess in today's society where everyone has to have equal outcomes I'm not surprised. In the interest of the weakest woman and the strongest man hitting the ball with the same exit velocity doesn't at all come with any issues. This amateurs who will undoubtably not follow the rules but I guess these pods and others featuring pros are only concerned with themselves and not the sport in general. BTW who is going to equalize a weak man who has to use a throttled paddle against a strong woman with a high powered paddle.
Question about your balls ...that you play with...on the PPA Tour. It seems that the ONLY reason people buy and play with the Onix DuraFast 40 is that it's the "official ball of the ppa tour". If that wasn't the case, how many balls would they sell? I don't know how much Onix is paying the PPA, but it's probably not enough. If they are JUST suppling free balls, then that's a steal of a good deal for Onix! Tyler, you're buds with Connor Pardoe. Have you guys ever had a frank discussion on balls? Do you think for Connor, it comes down to finding the absolute best ball or simply taking the highest bidder? And I know you hawk "Crown" balls, but have you tried the new Selkirk S1 and can you ever see a time that the PPA might actually switch to that new ball or some other ball?
