How to hit a topspin drive like Ben Johns

Whenever Ben Johns shares pickleball wisdom, I’m cracking open my notebook, taking notes, and then heading straight to the court to practice.

He’s the pro pickleball G.O.A.T., so learning the intricacies of a topspin drive directly from him was something I just couldn't pass up.

“There are certainly various levels of how much power you’re putting into the shot,” noted Johns. “Combined with spin, and based on what you’re trying to do, like a drive or a drop or drive and crash, there’s a lot of different ways to approach what you’re doing with the third shot.”

Most players use their wrist to generate power in their shots, but Johns shared that his power actually comes from the rotation of his hips and torso. 

“It’s a good thing to generate power from your wrist, but you’re going to want to harness it and rely on your body a little bit more because the wrist has a little more variance in terms of its range of motion. Therefore, when you use it a lot, it might not always end up exactly where you want it. You’ll get varying heights and results, even though you got power,” he explained. “You want to have a little wrist motion, but rely more on the twist of the hips for power because that’s much more consistent because this doesn’t have a huge range of motion. Use your hips for power and just stay low through the ball and it will keep the ball low, too, and have it go just over the net.”