Ben Johns defeated Hunter Johnson 12-10, 11-1 in the men’s singles final to end his first singles tournament of 2025 with a gold medal.

Johnson overcame an early 0-4 deficit and actually had chances to take the opening game at 10-8 and 10-9, but he misfired on passing shots on both points to give Johns the chance to come back, which he did a few points later.

“In singles now, you can get cleanly passed from anywhere. You can hit a great return, and sometimes they’ll just hit a clean winner and you’ve just gotta accept it and move on,” Johns said. “I think in Game 1 I wasn’t doing a great job of that, and when Hunter had 10-8 and 10-9, I think he missed two passing shots by no more than an inch, and that allowed me to come through and come back.”

But the missed passing shots weren’t the worst part of the latter stages of Game 1 for Johnson. He sustained an ankle injury while extending to hit a backhand pass he tried to close out the game.

“I tried to step and I kind of extended my ankle and it jammed,” he explained. “I was dealing with it a little bit all week, and it just kind of gave out. I didn’t fully realize it until I started playing the next few points in the second game when I ran for a ball and realized that I couldn’t really get there.”

Johnson did take a medical timeout early in Game 2 but was never able to fully recover. He was clearly hampered as Johns comfortably took the second game to claim his first singles title of the 2025 season.

Johns spoke about what it means to strike gold in his first singles tournament since December.

“I wasn’t coming into this tournament with huge expectations. I knew I could potentially win, but I also knew that with a lot of factors in the field right now, you can lose to anybody as well,” he mentioned. “Obviously I’m happy with the result, and it’s definitely a good omen for upcoming tournaments.”

Even though Sunday didn’t end the way Johnson was hoping for, he’s full of confidence after earning a gold in Tucson and a silver in Mesa.

“It’s still a great tournament, one that I can build a lot of confidence from,” he said. “I beat Fed yesterday in a crazy match. I still haven’t beat Ben yet, so that’s kind of a goal for me this year. I’m close every time, but it just doesn’t seem to go my way.”

In the bronze medal match, Federico Staksrud beat Connor Garnett by a 2-11, 11-4, 11-9 score line.