In Conversation With The World’s Best Pickleball Player

This year, he has been venturing across the Asia-Pacific region—first for a tournament in Vietnam, then as the flagship attraction of the Joola Titans Tour. Stopping in Malaysia and China, this exhibition tour featured a cadre of some of the best players in the world, along with the co-headliner Andre Agassi, the tennis legend-turned-pickleball ambassador. The Kuala Lumpur event climaxed with a match played on the highest floor of Merdeka 118, which, in turn, made it the highest pickleball match ever played. It underscores the sport’s rising popularity in Malaysia.

What has been the most exciting moment of your career?

I’ve had a lot of great moments in pickleball. It’s really hard to pick any individual one, but I would say maybe the most memorable, because it was the biggest surprise, was winning my first big tournament. I feel like people remember their first ones better than anything. I won the US Open singles title in 2017. I was just a kid, 18 years old, and I remember that evening I thought it was a dream. I couldn’t stop smiling. A lot of my family members were there to watch, and they got to experience the win with me, which was really great. And then later, I remember I got Mexican food with some of my friends that I trained with down there in Florida and who were also pros themselves. And I think it went late into the night!

What do you have left to achieve in your career?

I’m not a super goal-oriented person. I don’t really have many specific things that I want to achieve, but I feel like there are always ways to improve in pickleball. Ten years, even though it seems a lot for pickleball, is not that much, relatively, for most sports. I feel like I can still get better at a lot of things, and I feel like I can still win a lot of tournaments. So, I couldn’t tell you too many specific goals that I have, but I would like to continue winning tournaments, and that is the general idea every time I go anywhere and play.

Are you still tinkering with your game?

I changed my serve in Newport Beach, which was about a month ago. It’s been pretty good, depending on the conditions. This iteration of my serve has to be at least, like, the fourth or fifth one. Things are always changing in pickleball for me.

How would you feel when you are no longer the best player in the world?

I don’t think too much about one day not being the best player in the world. It has to happen at some point, right? So, whatever happens, I’ll be glad for the time I’ve had. It’s all of our goals to be as good as you possibly can and, for me, that includes being the best for as long as I can be. But when that day comes, I’m not going to be too upset about that. I’ve had a lot of great years in pickleball, and I’ll keep them going as long as I can, whatever time that is.

Where are the most interesting places your career has taken you?

I remember early in my career, in 2019, I got to go to Ecuador, and that was really cool. Early on, I played tournaments in Hawaii, which was just so, so fun. And then last year and this year, going to Asia for the first time—and not just for pickleball, but the first time to Asia for me at all—has been really, really cool. I’ve liked Malaysia, I’ve liked Vietnam, I’ve liked China… I think all of those have been incredible.

What has it been like to travel with Andre Agassi?

With Andre, it’s been really cool. He’s a legend of a sport that I grew up playing—tennis, of course—and he’s not just a very smart mind that you can talk to, from a champion’s perspective, just to learn from, but he’s also just a really nice guy who wants to take the time to talk to people, and talk about pickleball, about tennis—whatever you really want to talk about. It’s great to see that in somebody like him.

What have you heard about the pickleball scene in Malaysia?

The pickleball scene in Malaysia has been mentioned along with Vietnam in terms of the biggest hotspots in the world for growth in pickleball. Players, fans, courts—whatever it is in pickleball—Malaysia is all about it. So, I guess that’s one of the reasons we’re here: we’re fanatical about pickleball, and we love people who love pickleball.

What is one way the game of pickleball is changing?

The advancement of paddle technology, I would say, definitely does a lot to change the game. The gradual—and sometimes big—advancement of paddles changes how you play. This past week, playing in extreme humidity with a really soft ball, despite the paddles being very powerful these days, negated that a bit. So, it felt like more old-school pickleball, with extended points. Whereas in the US, we’re playing with a pretty fast ball, fast paddles, and fast conditions. The point often does get ended in the first initial attack or counter. I think it also shortens the learning curve a lot, especially for tennis players. You have tennis players who can, within the first year, become a top pro just by adopting their tennis strokes with modern-day paddles, and with a couple of adaptations, they become very good very quickly. I feel like that’s both a strength and a weakness for pickleball—to see somebody graduate that fast—but it also deepens the field much more quickly.