How to Beat Ben Johns: Stop Avoiding Him and Start Hunting Him

Most players try to hide the ball from Ben Johns, and it backfires every single time. Here is how to beat Ben Johns (or any elite player) by going straight at the best poacher in the game.

If you have ever wondered how to beat Ben Johns, your first instinct is probably the exact thing keeping you from doing it.

You try to hide the ball from him. You aim everything at his partner. You play the whole point like he is radioactive.

Below are five tactics, pulled straight from a recent men's doubles beatdown at the highest level, that flip the script.

They work against Ben, and they work against the aggressive poacher who terrorizes your local rec league.

If you want a broader framework for what separates winning teams from losing ones, modern pickleball strategies to winning in 2026 is worth reading before you dig in here.

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Why Avoiding Ben Johns Plays Right Into His Hands

In the men's doubles final at the recent MLP St. Louis event, the winning team did the unthinkable: they aimed almost everything at Ben Johns, and they won 11 to 3.

The numbers were absurd. According to Real Clear Stats, Ben hit 73% of the shots in that match.

At the kitchen, it looked like the opponents – Hayden Patriquin and Gabe Tardio – were sending close to 90% of their balls directly at him.

Most players think the way to beat Ben Johns is to keep the ball as far from him as possible. This team proved the opposite.

Here is the mechanism.

• When you avoid the strong player, you give him permission to roam.
• He cheats toward the middle, he poaches his partner's side, and he ends up touching nearly every ball anyway, on his terms.
• You have not removed him from the point. You have handed him the entire court.

For more on the broader patterns that decide tight matches, our breakdown of doubles strategy patterns that win covers the positioning fundamentals underneath everything here.

Understanding who Ben Johns could play men's doubles with in 2025 also adds context to why his movement patterns are so hard to neutralize.

What Does It Actually Mean to "Keep a Poacher Honest"?

Keeping a poacher honest means hitting enough balls at and behind him that he can no longer freely abandon his position to hunt yours.

A poacher is a player who leaves his own zone to attack balls that technically belong to his partner.

Ben Johns is the best poacher the sport has ever seen, because his quick hands and court coverage let him gamble and win.

When you let him gamble for free, he wins. When every gamble might get punished, the math changes.

The goal is not to overpower him.

That single mental shift is the foundation of how to beat Ben Johns and anyone who plays like him.

A simple 4-step system to win more pickleball games in 2026 builds nicely on this same principle of controlling your opponent's movement before you control the point.

Five Ways to Beat Any Elite Poacher

These five tactics build on each other. Start at the top, and only add the next one once the previous one is landing.

1. Hit at the Poacher, Not Around Him

The first move is the hardest because it feels wrong. Send the ball at the strong player on purpose.

When you target Ben directly, you anchor him. He cannot lunge into the middle to poach if he is busy handling the ball you just put on his hip. The winning team in St. Louis did not stumble into this, they planned it, and the placement strategy of where to aim every shot was deliberate from the first serve.

2. Go Behind Him

A poacher leans toward the middle. That lean leaves space behind him, toward his own sideline.

Hit there. A ball driven behind an over-committed player forces an awkward, off-balance reply, and it is the single fastest way to punish someone who is cheating. This is the same principle that makes attacking from the transition zone so effective: you hit to where the body is not. Understanding why professional pickleball players abandoned the slice shot in 2025 also shows how elite players have evolved to eliminate exactly these exploitable positions.

3. Attack the Overextension

When a poacher covers as much court as Ben does, he overextends. His paddle reaches one way while his feet are still moving the other way.

That stretched position produces weak, floating resets you can climb on. You cannot play passive and wait for it, though. You have to apply enough pressure that the overextension shows up in the first place. If you give him slow, comfortable dinks, he will never stretch. Our guide to stop getting attacked at the kitchen works in reverse here: read what forces a stretch, then create it on purpose.

4. Harness Confusion in the Middle

When you keep pressuring the poacher, his partner stops knowing whose ball it is. In that St. Louis match, balls down the middle caused real hesitation, with the partner frozen on shots she normally takes.

Confusion is a weapon. A ball aimed at the inside hip of the poacher, right at the seam, makes two players reach for the same shot or neither one reach at all. This is why understanding who covers the middle ball matters so much: when the other team has not solved it, you exploit it, and when you have not solved it, they will. The 12 drills you need to play your best pickleball in 2026 include several reps specifically designed to train this middle seam pressure.

5. Make Him Play the Suboptimal Ball

The last layer ties the rest together. Every tactic above exists to force the poacher into the shot he would rather not hit.

You want Ben hitting backhand resets from behind the baseline, not forehand putaways from the middle. You want him moving, reaching, and choosing. Mixing your pace, with a well-timed speed up after a few soft balls, keeps him from settling into rhythm. The hands battles that follow are won by whoever prepared, which is exactly what this hand speed system to win net battles trains.

Does Any of This Work Below the Pro Level?

Yes, and arguably it works even better, because rec and 4.0 poachers overextend far more than Ben Johns does and recover far slower.

You will not face Ben on Tuesday night. You will face the guy who crashes the middle every point and dares you to beat him.

The fix is the same pickleball poaching counter playbook, scaled down.

Hit at his feet first. Take away the easy poach before you try anything fancy.

Pick on the seam. The middle is where two amateurs argue with their feet, and women's doubles strategy differs here in instructive ways worth studying.

Stay patient at the kitchen. Calm hands and clean contact, the kind that makes pros like Tyra Black so unstoppable, beat a gambler over a long rally.

Ben is the GOAT because his pickleball IQ lets him know when to dink and when to speed it up.

You will not out-talent that. You can out-discipline the version of it you meet at your level.

Rounding out your shot arsenal, the 6 essential pickleball shots to master for 2026 gives you the specific weapons you need to execute this poaching counter strategy effectively.

Frequently Asked Questions

Should You Really Hit the Ball at the Best Player in Pickleball?

Yes, when that player is a poacher. Hitting at an aggressive net player anchors him to his own position and stops him from roaming. Avoiding him only frees him to cover the whole court, which is how players like Ben Johns dominate in the first place.

What Is Poaching in Pickleball?

Poaching is when a player crosses into their partner's zone to attack a ball that was not technically theirs. Done well, it creates easy putaways and pressure. The counter is to hit behind the poacher and into the seam so the gamble carries a cost.

How Do You Beat an Aggressive Net Player at the Rec Level?

Hit at the aggressive player's feet, drive a ball behind them early to make them hesitate, and target the middle seam where partners miscommunicate. Rec poachers overextend and recover slowly, so disciplined pickleball poaching counter placement beats them faster than trying to match their speed.

Why Did Targeting Ben Johns Work in MLP St. Louis?

Because it took away his greatest strength: free movement. With nearly every ball coming at him, Ben could not poach, his partner lost rhythm on middle balls, and the team that targeted him won 11 to 3. The 2025 MLP season breakdown covers the broader competitive context of that event in detail.

Is It Ever Smart to Avoid the Strong Player?

Occasionally, if the weaker partner is having a genuinely bad day and is not a poaching threat. But against an elite mover, constant avoidance backfires. The reliable answer to how to beat Ben Johns is engagement, not avoidance.