Getting ahead used to mean you were close to winning. At the highest level of pickleball, it now means you are entering the most difficult phase of the match.
A 25–0 run should end a match.
It didn’t.
At the Greater Zion Cup, Anna Leigh Waters and Ben Johns built what should have been an unassailable lead in the mixed doubles final. Across two games, they did not concede a single point. The match should have been over long before the third.
Instead, it stretched. Match points came and went. Eight of them were saved.
What looked finished turned into something else entirely.
The match doesn’t end when you take control
There was a time when getting ahead meant the match was nearly over.
That is no longer true.
At the highest level, a lead does not end the contest. It changes it.
The rallies get longer. The opponent takes more risks. The pressure shifts onto the player who is ahead.
You are no longer trying to win the match.
You are trying to stop it slipping.
That is a different problem.
The scoreboard starts working against you
This is where matches begin to turn.
You are still ahead. The score says you should be in control. But the feeling changes.
Every point you lose feels heavier. Every rally that extends feels like momentum is shifting.
The scoreboard, which should be an advantage, starts to create pressure instead.
This is where most matches are lost.
Not when players fall behind, but when they tighten while trying to protect a lead.
Why this is happening now
The level of the sport has changed.
Defensive quality is higher. Players are retrieving balls that used to end points. Resets are more consistent. Hands battles last longer.
Fitness plays a role as well. Players are staying in rallies deeper into matches, which makes it harder to break opponents once and finish the job.
But the biggest shift is structural.
Matches are no longer decided in a single phase.
They are decided in layers.
You take control. The opponent responds. The pressure builds. The match stretches.
And you are asked to solve it again.
Even the best are feeling it
Anna Leigh Waters showed both sides of this in Utah.
In the singles final, she fell behind early as Kate Fahey raced to a 10–0 lead. The match tilted quickly.
Waters did not panic. She reset, re-established control, and then closed the next two games 11–3, 11–2.
That sequence matters.
Coming back once is difficult. Resetting again to finish the match is something else.
The same pattern played out across the week. Leads were established, then challenged. Matches that looked settled kept reopening.
Even at the very top, one closing moment is no longer enough.
You don’t close once anymore
This is the real shift.
Closing a match is no longer a single action. It is a repeated process.
You reach 10–6. It becomes 10–8. You stabilise. It tightens again. You close again.
That cycle repeats.
That is why players often feel like they are winning the same match twice.
Sometimes three times.
What separates players now
The best players still take control.
That has not changed.
What has changed is what happens next.
They absorb resistance. They manage the swing. And when the match refuses to end, they stay composed long enough to finish it anyway.
That requires something more than execution.
It requires belief when control no longer feels certain.
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Because in modern pickleball, winning the match is not about getting ahead.
It is about finishing it when you no longer feel in control.
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Chris Beaumont is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of World Pickleball Magazine. Chris follows the global game closely, reporting on the latest news, developments, stories and tournaments from all five continents. He also hosts the World Pickleball Podcast, interviewing people at all levels of pickleball. Chris is also an avid player, currently struggling to make the breakthrough from 4.0 to 4.5.