by Kelly Campbell
Valentine’s Day is just under a month away, but our hearts are breaking with this news: iconic pickleball partners Ben and Collin Johns are calling it quits. The brothers announced in December that their partnership ended, effectively immediately.
The pair is one of the most successful and well-known players in pickleball, often labeled as the “First Family” of professional pickleball and the faces of the PPA tour. Together, they hold 33 titles and 43 medals and have been the #1 men’s doubles team for most of their tenure. After some disappointing losses last year, they’re going their separate ways, planning to compete with different partners in 2025.
It’s safe to say that the Johns brothers’ pickleball separation is the end of an incredible era. Although the split is a shock to the pickleball world, especially as professional pickleball picks up steam in the mainstream, they’re not the first duo in the sports world to go their separate ways. But we have to wonder, for any seemingly successful sports duo: what led to the split? What usually comes next for these athletes?
Read on for everything we know about the future of the Johns’ pickleball careers and potential future match-ups while we touch on some of the most infamous breakups in sports history.
The Johns Brothers’ Separation
Many picklers are still processing the split between two of the most well-known professional pickleball athletes.
After numerous successful seasons, the brothers seemed untouchable. In 2022 and 2023, they won 10+ gold medals together. Even in 2024, they celebrated seven wins and won 80% of their men’s doubles matches.
The Washington Post called Ben Johns the “pickleball’s first superstar,” and the brothers boast a huge range of partnerships and sponsorships, including deals with Lifetime, Dill Dinkers, and JOOLA. When you search the “most well-known pickleball players”, you get: Anna Leigh Waters, Ben Johns, and Collin Johns.
Regardless of the Collins’ outwardly impressive record and pickleball fame as a duo, they found themselves racking up more losses than ever before this year. Their team did not make MLP playoffs and did not win one men’s doubles gold for a five-month period. There’s no denying that their game suffered in comparison to their previous seasons together. There were even rumors of growing frustration amongst the pair in mid-2024 when an alleged email from Collin Johns to MLP airing grievances was leaked.
So, what led to the decline (at least, by their own standards) in the Johns’ brother’s games? We can only speculate that they’d lost their spark together and that the stress of living up to their reputation and the emotion that came with unfamiliar losses was too much. Still, even as they plan to move forward in men’s doubles tournaments, now as competitors with different partners, the split seems amicable.
Speaking to Pickleball.com, Ben Johns said, “We’ve achieved so much as a team together, and I’m really proud of what we’ve accomplished. Change-ups in life and in sports can be a refreshing thing. We feel like this decision will help us find new purpose, create variety, and reengage us in the sport we love so much. This is not necessarily the end of our partnership for good, just a healthy adjustment for the time being. We’ll always be brothers first and part of each other’s pickleball legacy. We’re excited to see what 2025 holds for both of us.”
Ben Johns has already announced that he has chosen 19-year-old rising pickleball star Gabe Tardio as his new partner for 2025. On the Hannah Johns podcast, he says, “Gabe was certainly kind of my first call. I contacted him first and was like, ‘Are you available? Do you want to play?’ He was definitely interested and wanted to. I think you will see us play a good amount of the year. Gabe was the first call.”
It won’t be easy to cultivate the chemistry and bond the two brothers had with their new partners, but a fresh duo will likely lead to opportunities for new growth and development. Ben said as much on the Hannah Johns podcast, explaining, “I think variety is really good and key for kind of just keeping things fresh and keeping yourself interested. I think it was probably just healthier for both of us to get a little bit of a change and maybe get some more enthusiasm for the game and all that going into next year. That’s not to say this is forever. I mean, obviously we still really enjoy playing together and we’d like to come back together at some point. I think it’s more just like, ‘Let’s take a break, refresh mentally, and just kind of maybe even develop our games a little bit outside of playing with each other.’”
It sounds like Ben and Collin are open to reuniting in the future, but there’s no saying for sure if or when. In the meantime, we’re excited to see what 2025 brings for each player as they move forward with their new partnerships.
Infamous Sports Splits
While the Johns brothers’ separation might feel like huge news for the pickleball world, they’re not the first professional athletes to go from duo to done. Here are a few of some well-known professional sports splits:
Serena & Venus Williams
This sibling partnership is often considered the most dominant tennis duo of all time. Together, they won three Olympic gold medals and 14 Grand Slam doubles titles and have won a combined $136,930,533 in prize money. But the sisters became competitors with each other when playing solo and have often vied for the reputation of best tennis player of all time. Once they focused more on their solo careers, the pair were often pitted against each other by fans and the media. Their professional rivalry was infamous, often because it seemed like they were each other’s only competition, even in late rounds of major tournaments. Eventually, their gap as professional athletes grew wider as Serena began to come out on top, but they credit each other for their on-court success and overall greatness. Despite their noted rivalry, they’ve remained close and support each other on and off the court.
Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant
Once considered the ultimate NBA duo as LA Lakers teammates, Shaquille O’Neil and Kobe Bryant’s once-beloved partnership turned into a rivalry in the early 2000s. Together as Lakers, they won three back-to-back championships. Lakers fans considered them unstoppable, but a rift grew as they often argued and didn’t see eye-to-eye as teammates. Shaq’s trade to the Miami Heat in 2004 signaled the end of their partnership, often considered a full-on “divorce” by fans, and their media behaviors added fuel to the rumors of their feud.
Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig
As two of the most famous baseball players of all time, Gerhig and Ruth were lumped together as a duo during their tenure playing for the New York Yankees. Especially because of their immense talent and success as Yankees, they were often considered a superstar duo. They bonded as teammates and friends, knew each other’s families, and had an overall positive relationship. That is, until personal matters created issues, leading to an infamous feud between the two. Their falling out was the rumored result of a dispute between Gehrig’s mother and Ruth’s second wife. After years of bad blood, they famously embraced at Gehrig’s retirement ceremony in 1939, after his moving farewell speech. Their transition from friends to enemies is one of the most talked-about in sports history, even today, as demonstrated by Tony Castro’s 2018 book, “Gehrig and the Babe: The Friendship and the Feud.”
While we’re not yet sure how deep the separation is between Ben and Collin Johns, we can agree that these are two great players and hope that they find success solo and with their new partners.
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