As paddle technology increases allow players to hit harder and keep the ball in with spin, there has been an increase in power added to the pickleball game.
This style of play is what is also called “modern pickleball”.
Previously, most players would flat drop or backspin drop to get to the kitchen. And then within the past 1-2 years, carbon fiber face with more grit allowed played to aggressively topspin drop or hybrid drive.
And now with newer faster paddles in addition to the grit, it allows players like Quang Duong and Alshon to drive more 3rd, and 5th, and in this tournament even 7th shot.
The old style of doing a drop, reset, get to the kitchen, and then that’s where the offense starts is no longer the only way to win.
If you can create a pop up with low, fast, dipping hybrid drives, it allows your partner to poach and attack in transition. The offense can be started in mid-court and no longer limited to just resetting to get to the kitchen.
*Note: it’s not like that never happened before, you can watch pickleball national finals from 8 years ago and they did attack in transition as well. They just couldn’t do it as often and was way riskier. This was because you couldn’t “pull up a ball” if it’s below net height with the old smooth paddles.
Colin Johns and Ben Johns have been sticking with the established way of pickleball.
Quang Duong and Christian Alshon have been spearheading the new way to play.
And this game was the one that will change the way Pickleball is played. Like Steph Curry’s Warriors first final versus the Lebron’s Cavs. Whoever won set the tone for how basketball was played the next decade.