Dylan Frazier and JW Johnson won another gold medal at the latest stop on the PPA Tour. As has been true in their other recent victories, they were seeded #2, but did not have to face Ben and Collin Johns due to the Johns being upset before the finals. Men’s doubles instead starting to look similar to men’s singles. In men’s singles, Federico Staksrud gets upset in earlier rounds less frequently than does Ben Johns, but if they face each other in the final, Ben consistently wins. Similarly, the Johns brothers are starting to be beaten more often by lower seeds than are Frazier/Johnson, but if they both make the finals, the Johns tend to win.

 

So what do Frazier/Johnson do so well that seems to inoculate them from upsets by lower ranked teams? If we look at how Frazier/Johnson played the final, we get a glimpse of their strategy that makes them so tough against lower seeds.

 

 

In the final, Frazier/Johnson defeated #4 seed Matt Wright/Dekel Bar. Frazier/Johnson won 9-11, 11-3, 11-5, 11-4. As is so often true of Frazier/Johnson, they did one strategy, they did it well, they stuck to it, and they didn’t vary it even after losing game one.

 

The speedup stats from the final tell some of the story. Game one was the only one in which Wright/Bar was equal/better at speedups. In game one, Frazier/Johnson were successful on 4 of 9 speedups, to Wright/Bar’s 5 of 11. But, in the other three games, Frazier/Johnson had the advantage: game two, Frazier/Johnson 5 of 5, Wright/Bar 5 of 12; game three Frazier/Johnson 4 of 5, Wright/Bar 3 of 6; and game four Frazier/Johnson 5 of 6, Wright/Bar 2 of 4. Totals for the match were Frazier/Johnson 18 of 25 or 72%; Wright/Bar 15 of 33 or 45%. As is true virtually every time, the team which won the speedup battle won the match.

 

But speedups do not tell the whole story. What Frazier/Johnson did was to play nearly every point the same consistent way. They used their quickness to get to the line. Once at the line, they dinked the vast majority of the time at Matt Wright’s left foot. In other words, they dinked slightly to their left of middle. Dinking at that location forced Wright to dink backhand in return. It deprived Bar of forehand opportunities to speedup, unless he chose to move far to his right and speedup out of position. Bar’s forehand speedup is the best offensive tool is the Wright/Bar arsenal, so keeping it away from that weapon was very smart.

 

 

In addition, when Frazier/Johnson dinked at Wright’s left foot, Wright’s typical shot back was to dink inside out, toward Frazier. Frazier has become increasingly talented at forehand speedups. He has also been increasingly taking more of the middle, especially by running around his backhand. Frazier taking more middle is a good move as Johnson does not typically generate a lot of offense off his forehand dink. Wright’s other option was to direct his backhand dink across his body, going down the line toward Johnson’s backhand. However, when dinking down the line, there is less room for error and more chance of a pop-up; a pop-up that would feed straight into the JW Johnson backhand flick, one of the best shots in all of professional pickleball.

Frazier/Johnson did the same strategy in each game. They did not change their strategy after losing game one. They had a strategy, it was a simple strategy and it was an effective strategy. They came out and just did the same basic thing, over and over. They left it to the opponents to figure out an adjustment that would alter the outcome. No such adjustment was made and Frazier/Johnson won games two, three, and four fairly easily. Frazier/Johnson are like a fastball pitcher in baseball; they throw their best pitch, over and over, and just dare you to hit it. In this tournament, like the past several, no one was able to consistently hit their fastball. Frazier/Johnson earned a well-deserved gold medal.

 

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