Ben Johns has made headlines at this week's Opendoor Pickleball World Championships with a ‘new’ weapon: a left-handed forehand.

But while most pickleball fans might consider it to be a new shot for Johns, it’s better characterized as a return to a tool that he previously relied on in singles back in 2016 and 2017.

“Back in the day when people played singles, it was pretty much all drives,” he explained. “Then, I started dropping and coming in—the cat and mouse style as we know it today—and that required me to just hit backhand slices, basically backhand drops. So I stopped using my left hand and I stopped really hitting a bunch of passing shots, as I would just drop and come in… that’s kind of the style I just continued to play for singles after that.”

With the massive gameplay changes that pickleball has undergone over the past decade—from new balls (including the LT Pro 48 on the PPA Tour) to more powerful paddles—Johns has opted to break out the lefty forehand once again.

“You can’t really drop and come in super well with this ball. You can hit accurate drops, but the ball bounces pretty high and people have a lot of spin on their paddles, so they can just take a drop and do a lot with it, so cat and mouse doesn’t really work very well. You can hit drops occasionally just to stay in the point, but you’re not gonna drop and come in very often, and that’s kind of what I do well with my backhand,” he noted. “I don’t really generate a lot of good power with my backhands, so I went back to the left hand to kind of experiment and see if I could hit it harder.”

Johns won his opening round singles match against Brandon French 11-7, 1-11, 11-5 on Tuesday before falling to No. 9 seed Noe Khlif 8-11, 8-11 in Wednesday’s Round of 32.

While he admits he doesn’t know how much more he will play singles in the future, Johns plans to keep using the lefty forehand when he does.

“When I do play singles, you can expect to see it.”