By now you’ve probably seen the shot. Ben Johns, apparently fed up with Quang Duong’s aggressive play style, sent a ball high and hard at the youngster during a match at last week’s PPA Tour Masters in Palm Springs.

Johns said afterward that he meant it as a “warning shot,” signaling that if other players want to continue going for body bags so often, he can, too. It was the equivalent of a pitcher throwing a fastball up and in on a batter who is crowding the plate.

But the over-the-top manner in which he fired that warning shot has sparked a debate in pickleball circles — was Johns out of line, or was it fair play?

Weigh in on the controversy in the poll below. 👇️ 

Also in this issue:

• Pickleball’s Tiger 🐅

• Your in-depth dinking guide 📝

• Solutions to pickleball’s noise problem 🔊

• Iconic moments from PPA Tour Masters 🌴

• How PlayTime Scheduler took off 🚀

Let’s cook. 🧑‍🍳

HIGHLIGHT OF THE WEEK

Move over golf, pickleball has its own Tiger

We’ve heard for awhile that pickleball players in Asia are going to be the next stars of our sport. If this clip is any indication, that’s getting closer to becoming a reality.

The guy in the white T-shirt is Willy “The Taiwan Tiger” Chung, who already has played in Major League Pickleball Australia.

We can’t wait until we see him competing against the top U.S. pros.

While this point as a whole earns the top spot this week, we’d be remiss if we didn’t also share with you this early contender for shot of the year (yes, it’s only January, but this is seriously good stuff).

POLL

INSTRUCTION

Are you ACTUALLY good at dinks?

Unless you’re over 4.0, you’re probably sitting in one of two camps right now:

• You’re a beginner who hasn’t mastered the dink

• You’re a 3.5(ish) who needs to practice dinks more

Either way, if you think practicing dinks = flicking a few over to the person in front of you before rec play, what are you even doing?

It’s OK, most rec players mess this up:

→ They start warming up their dinks but quickly escalate to harder shots, turning the warm-up into a game of “who has faster hands.”

→ They just exercise one style of dink (cross court, straight ahead, out-of-the-air, etc.) and think they’re properly warmed up.

But warming up isn’t about winning; it’s about calibrating touch, control and consistency. And to do that, you need a varied dink routine:

1. Start with short, controlled dinks 🎯 Aim for landing JUST over the net

2. Take high, long dinks out of the air 🎯 Attack the shoulder or backhand

3. Mind your balance ⚖️ Knees slightly bent, paddle up, weight centered

🔗A foolproof guide for your best dinking game

FEATURED STORY

Want to stop noise? There’s only one (good) option

We keep scratching our heads at how it’s possible for there to STILL be new noise complaints in 2025:

• We’ve known for YEARS that proximity to courts = bad for neighbors.

• We’ve known for YEARS how far courts need to be from residences (250+ feet).

• We’ve known for YEARS how much court sound is too much (70 decibels or more).

And yet, well-meaning municipalities keep trying to give pickleballers what they want …by rushing the placement decision & not thinking it through.

We appreciate you, town planners, but could you please do your homework so Susan from across the street will stop threatening to sue? Because the issue is much more severe than an errant lawsuit.

There is a movement to make pickleball more quiet by altering the equipment, and while we’re all for some creative engineering, we have to ask:

Have you actually ever played against someone using a ‘quiet paddle’? 

If you have, you know how strange it is. You can’t always predict where the ball is going because the physics of the game has changed. Sound is a signifier, after all.

But the physics of pickleball don’t necessarily need to change in order for the game to be less stressful on neighbors. So, we spoke with an expert to understand and analyze the existing “quiet category” of products, from paddles to sound barriers.

🔗 We analyzed all the noise “solutions” here

PRODUCT OF THE WEEK

The (Pro)1 to rule them all

Engage is a popular brand among pros and rec players alike because of recent paddle releases that offer a thin profile, aerodynamic shape and extra long handles. They’re whippy, powerful and fun to play with.

The Engage Pursuit Pro1 recently made our list of the best paddles on the market in 2025, and for good reason. It’s super consistent over extended use and both control-focused and power-focused players seem to love it.

🔗 Buy it here

PRO PICKLE

Key takeaways from entertaining PPA Tour Masters

The Ben Johns/Quang Duong incident was just one of the many iconic moments we saw at the PPA Tour Masters last week.

We also were on the edge of our seats watching this interaction between Jericho Grollman and James Ignatowich after Grollman disagreed with an out call on match point.

But the story of the tournament in terms of actual results was the Johns brothers taking gold in men’s doubles in their final tournament together (for now).

They captured the first Slam of the season – and the 2,000 ranking points that come with it – with an 11-5, 12-10, 11-3 sweep over No. 2 seeds Federico Staksrud & Hayden Patriquin to secure their 34th title as teammates.

Other division winners:

• Women’s doubles: Anna Leigh Waters/Catherine Parenteau

• Mixed doubles: Ben Johns/Anna Leigh Waters

• Men’s singles: Federico Staksrud

• Women’s singles: Anna Leigh Waters

That’s another triple crown for Waters, for those keeping track at home.

Despite finishing second, Sunday’s result actually moved Staksrud into the No. 1 spot in the PPA Tour men’s doubles rankings because of the way the tour’s rolling 52-week points system works. He earned more points this week (1,600) than he did at last year’s Masters (1,000), whereas Ben Johns earned the same amount (2,000), thus the jump for Staksrud.

We also captured plenty of highlights while we were on site in Palm Springs. Here’s just a few of them:

• Go ahead, try to get a ball past Catherine Parenteau

• A tweener from the Tweener King himself

• Ben Johns was moving like a mad man last week

• Junior pickleball is wild right now

🔗 Read our full recap from The Masters here

ORIGIN STORY

You’ve probably heard of PlayTime Scheduler…

… But do you realize just how important a tool it is for pickleball?

In 2016, Reine Steel realized she had a problem: finding games that fit her schedule without having to deal with endless group texts or email chains.

As a web developer with decades of experience, she knew there had to be a better way.

So she created what would eventually become PlayTime Scheduler:

• The app now connects over 380,000 players 

• It’s used in 57 countries 

• Over 13,000 venues have been logged

• The total number of play sessions logged is over 1.6 million

With the recent release of their mobile app, PlayTime Scheduler is poised for their biggest year yet.

We sat down with Reine recently to learn more about how she created a tool that has truly changed the global pickleball community.

🔗 PlayTime Scheduler's origin story

QUICK HITS

• Impressive: This ping pong ATP tweener is insane 🏓

• How-To: How NOT to be a better pickleball partner 😉

• Competition: Beat players who are better than you 📈

• LOL: Don’t you DARE enter the realm of the 5.0s 🤦 

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