Add another gold medal to Ben Johns and Anna Leigh Waters’s unstoppable record in mixed doubles. The No. 1 seeds won gold in a swift three game match against the No. 5 seeded Christian Alshon and Etta Wright at the Lapiplasty® 3D Bunion Correction® Pickleball World Championships.

The final score was 11-9, 11-5, 11-2.

Though Johns and Waters had a slow start. In game one, they were down 0-7 against Alshon and Wright. 

“Christian and Etta definitely started strong. They were hitting some great drops and Christian closed fast and applied pressure. If you return to Christian he’s going to drive big so it was hard to attack early on. I wasn’t reading Etta well and she was putting some heavy counters on me. They do a variety of things to make them really dangerous,” said Johns.

“I’m glad Ben was super aggressive. I was just doing my role, hitting some good drops and dinks,” said Waters. 

In game two, Johns and Waters came out more aggressive from the start. 

“I’m usually a feel player where the better I feel the more I’m going to attack. So I feel like she expects me to attack the further we go into a match because I get more comfortable. I was really feeling the patterns better. I was seeing where they were at and that causes a lot more attacks,” shared Johns. 

Earlier, Waters won silver in women’s doubles, which is a rare occasion for the No. 1 woman in the world. When asked how she recouped from the loss, Waters had this to say:

“It’s getting tougher because every division is very difficult now. But I was telling myself that I have a chance to win two more medals and that a lot of people would love to be in that position. So, I don’t take it for granted and I really just have to give it my all,” concluded Waters.