PPA Vietnam🤯🇻🇳 & The Invention of the Right Side Alpha🤴

If you didn’t know… the last PPA event in Vietnam set a Guinness World Record for attendance at a pickleball match. This video of the size of the crowd is ABSOLUTELY BONKERS🤯🤯🤯. And according to players who played in this arena, not only did the crowd show up, but they also SHOWED OUT and brought the energy and fire. This is such a great sign for pickleball’s future, and pickleball’s future in Asia, in particular.

Rob Nunnery stated on Twitter that attendance was free, and I cannot speak to that. Even so, that doesn’t change my take or interpretation of such an insanely huge turnout. This is a significant win for the growth of our sport, whether Guiness was advised to be in attendance or not. Shoutout PPA Tour Asia for everything they are doing- they are a lean team, but man, they are making things happen.

The event in Vietnam had plenty of storylines. Congrats to Tyson McGuffin/Eric Oncins and Kaitlyn Christian/Zoey Wang for being repeat champions in gender doubles. It is never easy to win back-to-back titles! I expect a confidence boost for these players in the coming events so long as their jet lag doesn’t get the best of them.

It was also a great event for Armaan Bhatia and Zane Navritil, who made the final after besting Ben Johns and Dekel Bar. The Kitchen posed an interesting question on Ben’s MD losses in Asia, but my main takeaway is just that it’s really hard to play with Ben, as I discussed last week. Hopefully Dekel has some time to shake the rust off and is back to full-form soon.

I of course also have to shoutout Alix and Jonathan Truong for winning their first gold medal together as a mixed team, being Vietnamese clearly made it even more significant for them. Alix has been open on her social media about feeling more connected to her Vietnamese heritage after playing in Asia, so them getting this win is extra heartwarming. I haven’t seen much of Jonathan play, but I have always loved Alix’s game and think she is a top 5 female ball manipulator, and I’m excited and interested in seeing how this win will affect her confidence in the States.

Sahra Dennehy won women’s singles, besting Kaitlyn Christian along the way in a big upset. Also in singles, Vietnam ran the table with all three podium finishers🇻🇳🇻🇳🇻🇳 being Vietnamese. Congratulations to Phuc Huynh on the gold. I wonder how these men would do against Quang? It is objectively hilarious that Quang is not able to play these PPA Tour Asia events, but he seems to be doing just fine. Still, too funny.

As promised in my last edition, I am going to gradually cover some of the more macro shifts pickleball has seen in the last few years. As I’ve thought about it in the last week, I’ve realized there are so many large-scale changes I can write about, and I’m excited to explore them all with you guys in the coming weeks/months. Today, I will discuss why right-siders are more in-demand than ever, specifically in men’s doubles.

When I started playing pickleball, it was like being a right-side man was subconsicously, and even consciously, looked down upon if you were young and able-bodied. The right side was for beta males, guys that couldn’t talk to girls, guys that didn’t have their first drink until they were 25.

But now? Oh how times have changed. Gabe Tardio plays the biggest, flashiest right side in pickleball with an iconic pizza chain dangling from his neck and regularly pushes Ben Johns out of the way. Hayden Patriquin, dripping with swag and aura, regularly tells his opponents anything ranging from that they “can’t hang” to that he is “too good for them”, and probably worse, LOL. Tyson McGuffin is tatted all the way to the base of his skull, as electrifying as ever, Christian Alshon is both the tweener king and the king of fighting for phantom hindrances, Matt Wright is stealing hearts and podiums north of 45, and even CJ Klinger is firing up the crowd. The right has never been cooler, more dynamic, or sought after.

Why has this happened? How did the perfect right-side archetype go from Collin Johns to the men I mentioned above? The answer is undoubtedly multifaceted, but here are some of my thoughts and four reasons I came up with for the rise of this phenomenon.

Originally, this reason only applied to middle coverage and is what gave right-side players the ability to slide hard when they know they are going to be attacked. Players could trust their left-side partner to plug the middle effectively because stretching with a forehand is not that hard. Left-side players were never afforded the same luxury because it’s more difficult for a right-side player to cover as much middle with their backhand.

Today, this also applies to court positioning when dinking- a guy like Christian can afford to be huge in the middle from the right because if a ball does manage to bounce behind him, stretching to get it is not that difficult, and is far easier than if the same situation were to arise for a left-side player. Just think about it, would you rather hit a forehand or backhand ATP on the full run?

Because stretching with a forehand is easier than with a backhand, left-side players generally cannot slide as hard (unless a lefty is involved!). I feel like I need a whiteboard to properly explain all these concepts, so I apologize if anything is unclear, but I am doing my best.

The big shift in men’s pro doubles, I think, happened when Riley Newman and Matt Wright realized that Matt could attack Ben Johns high to his backhand quite judiciously because he rarely counterd at that spot. Why didn’t Ben counter much here? For one, he didn’t have much of a 2 handed counter (which he now does), and because he simply had so many things to worry about as he could not trust Collin to cover as much court as was needed. I think Matt doing this is both what made the necessity of a 2 handed counter evident for a lot of men and what inspired guys on the right to start firing away.

As everyone has gotten better, it’s become scary what some people, men and women, can do with a dead forehand off the bounce. The ability to mix up speed, spin, placement, and power with a forehand are unmatched. Everyone has a different style and way of generating all this deception, but those who do it well are a nightmare and developing this skill is currently a huge focus in my game. There’s simply more you can do with a forehand than a backhand, so it makes sense that the game has shifted in a way that teams are trying to get as many looks at this shot as possible.

Think about it - extend your dominant hand as far as you can in a “forehand” motion, and then do it with a “backhand” motion/hand placement. The reach is farther in the backhand placement! So in the middle on a high dink, a good right-side player can actually reach it quicker than his partner, assuming both players are right-handed. Pickleball is all about taking time away, and if you have good reach, a good flick, and good mobility, you should be looking for every opportunity possible to be taking away time.

I feel like I got very technical there, and I hope everyone was generally able to follow. These are just some of the reasons why we now see so many matches in which right-side players are iced out and why matches just feel like Ben/Fed/Andrei/JW grinding their hearts out hitting backhands cross-court at the kitchen line. It’s a bit boring for sure, but if it wasn’t optimal, it wouldn’t happen. I will leave everyone with this parting meme that I wanted to include but couldn’t figure out how to😂. See everyone this week in Virginia Beach! Excited to be back competing stateside!