Hunter Johnson

... is a French tennis player, uh, who actually is studying to finish his master's right now, and so he's only playing pickleball part-time.

First round, 55-seed takes on 3-seed, Hunter Johnson-

Yep

... reign- who just won, who just won a championship-

He's like 11-1 against Alshon.

He was 6-0 against Hunter Johnson last year.

before the finals that he got steamrolled.

So I was surprised at some of those numbers.

Great run from Ben Johns to get there, first time in a while, but Hunter Johnson was on a freaking heater with the passing shots and the ground strokes.

He was, and look, Ben plays that cat and mouse, right? It's a little bit of a different style of singles.

I think we've gone more to the baseline game, the ground strokes.

Also, one more thing before we move on from men's singles.

Gabe Joseph ends up knocking off Zane Ford.

Now, I said on the last pod, I think this is the biggest thing I wanna talk about, I said that I don't think that Hunter Fed or-

[laughs]

...

[laughs] Now, look.

[laughs]

Hunter won, so I'm still kind of correct.

Uh, Ben, Ben had a very, very favorable draw.

Okay, last thing about Mesa, Arizona, and the men's singles.

It was, it really was wild to see both Hunter Johnson and Chris Hayworth with a round of 64 match-up.

That was pretty crazy to me with, you know, the WPR and the double buys that a handful or a, a few of the players got, and then you had to see Hunter a- and Chris working their way in from the round of 64.

And the, the main match that stood out to me, of course, a wonderful Hayworth over Fed and three in the finals, but Chris Hayworth was able to take down Christian Alshon three and one.

I, I agree.

And what I've seen in a small sample is that Shup is a bit more dynamic and mixed than men's.

But still, I think that if they, if they get the middle situated, and I think that for the most part JLG should be the dominant force in the middle, specifically at the kitchen line, I think that that is definitely a match that they can win over Roscoe and Connor Garnett, and possibly even Colin Johns and Hunter Johnson also in their section.

Also remember JLG has been playing a lot with Tyler Loomis, so he's used to playing with a lefty, and now he actually gets to play with a good one, so-

And I mean, once again, I'm sure some people are probably sick of this, this opinion, but I mean, I don't think people realize how almost impossible it is, it will be to crack into that top echelon of players once they hit that.

So for example, Andre Dascu, assuming he continues to play these singles, assuming he continues to get byed into the round of 16, Chris Hayworth or Hunter Johnson, who are by far the top players in the world, they will not start in the round of 16 like Andre Dascu unless they start doing better in men's doubles and also mixed doubles.

Andre Dascu is almost a lock for, call it top, top six each tournament in men's doubles and mixed doubles.

He's getting so many more points coming from those than Chris Hayworth would by winning a singles tournament.

I'm gonna make a very bold prediction here, okay?

Okay.

Okay.I don't think that anybody, I said this earlier, so Hunter Johnson has to play in the first round as the three seed, while Eric Hanson's Fed, Ben Johns, and Christian Alshon get the double byes.

Mm-hmm.