Ben Johns/Andrei Daescu struck gold in their first tournament together with an 11-2, 11-7, 11-1 victory over No. 2 seeds Federico Staksrud/Christian Alshon.

Everything seemed to be working for the top seeds, as they forced several volley errors with their drives from the baseline and effectively countered their opponents’ speedups off the bounce at nearly every opportunity.

Outside of a 1-5 deficit early in the second game, the top seeds never really seemed to be threatened and cruised to one of the more lopsided wins of the day at Lake Kennedy Racquet Center.

Both Johns and Daescu almost exclusively play the left side with other partners, so Daescu stepped into a new role on the right side for this tournament.

Obviously, it worked out well.

“It was a new partnership and a fun challenge this week because we both play the left side,” he noted. “I haven’t played the right in a while, probably since 2023 with Zane [Navratil] in MLP, but I feel like I adapted pretty well. Obviously, playing alongside Ben makes it very easy. I just had to keep the ball in the right spots and pretty much get out of the way, so it was super enjoyable.”

Johns raved about Daescu’s performance and versatility as a partner.

“Andrei’s amazing. I couldn’t have done what he did, which is adapt to the right side in like a week,” he said. “He played phenomenally, and he’s such a competitor. It’s really a pleasure to be on the court with him.”

With Johns set to play mostly with Gabe Tardio for the rest of the year, it’s unknown if we’ll see this partnership run it back in 2025.

But when asked about it, Johns didn’t give a concrete answer.

“You never know,” he said. “We’ll leave it open ended for now.”

In the bronze medal match, No. 6 seeds JW Johnson/CJ Klinger defeated No. 4 seeds Dekel Bar/Tyson McGuffin by an 11-7, 11-6 score line.