Ben Johns is undoubtedly the best pickleball player in the world right now. And Max Freeman is 'dropping' Ben as his men’s doubles partner in the upcoming Professional Pickleball Association (PPA) Cape Coral Open in March. But why?
Is Max dropping Ben because they got into an argument? Nope.
Is Max dropping Ben because he found a better partner? Nope.
Is Max dropping Ben because there is a scheduling conflict? Nope.
Max is dropping Ben for one reason - Max isn’t in the cool kids club.
Let’s get into it!
Who is Max Freeman?
Freeman is a former blue chip tennis recruit from Ashland, Massachusetts, a small town about an hour outside of Boston. He graduated from Ashland High School in 2017 and was ranked as high 12th in the nation in his class, according to tennisrecruiting.net.
After high school, Freeman chose to attend Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. This is where Freeman’s ties to pickleball occured - he met and became good friends with his teammate, James Ignatowich.
When I say Freeman was a great tennis player - I mean it. The lefty started as a freshman, which is not very common. In total, he played five years at Vandy, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. During that time, Freeman was ranked as high as 112th in the country in singles, and 19th in doubles.
Oh, yeah - he also beat a guy you may have heard of - Ben Shelton (14th ranked tennis player in the world) in straight sets - 6-2, 7-5.
After earning a Master’s degree in Marketing from Vandy in 2022, Freeman stopped playing tennis for basically the first time in his life.
Pickleball
Freeman moved to Florida to train with James Ignatowich and his friend Ryan Fu (another D1 tennis player).
Freeman picked the sport up quickly and made his first pro debut in April 2024, in the Association of Pickleball Players (APP) Delray Beach Open.
In August 2024, Ryan Fu and Freeman played in the PPA Picklr Utah Open together in the main draw. In the Round of 32, they played Dekel Bar and Collin Johns, going toe to toe with the much more established players. They lost 11-9, 1-11, 10-12. If I had to guess, I would say that Collin probably liked Freeman’s game after playing against him, and told Ben about Freeman.
In October, Freeman teamed up with Casey Diamond at the PPA Virginia Beach, and they made it all the way to the quarterfinals. They beat Jaume Martinez Vich and Tyson McGuffin 11-5, 11-2. At PPA Worlds in November, Freeman and Diamond barely lost to Dylan Frazier and JW Johnson 10-12 in the third game of a Round of 32 match. Frazier and Johnson were the #2 seeds at that tournament and are known as one of the top men's doubles teams in the world.
Freeman is also rapidly getting better in mixed doubles, having partnered with some top level talent in Hurricane Tyra Black and Lea Jansen. In fact, Freeman and Jansen made the mixed doubles main draw quarterfinals in their two tournaments together in 2024.
And that was his plan in 2025 - Freeman had some impressive partnerships lined up with top level talent:
- Ben Johns - 1 tournament
- Dylan Frazier - 1 tournaments
- Tyson McGuffin - 2 tournaments
- James Ignatowich - multiple tournaments
- Lea Jansen - 2 tournaments
- Hurricane Tyra Black - 4 tournaments
But now the rules have changed.
Enter the PPA Gold Card
New for 2025, the PPA Gold Card has already created some complexities. The PPA Gold Card is a status given to players who are exclusively with the United Pickleball Association (UPA). The UPA is the holding company that includes both the PPA and Major League Pickleball (MLP).
In the Masters in January, Vivian Glozman was forced to go through qualifiers due to her contract status. Her contract situation is very complicated, but essentially she is a signed player with MLP, but not signed with PPA. So she had to go through qualifiers with Jackie Kawamoto and Riley Newman.
This didn’t seem fair to the qualifiers, or the main draw top seeds, who had to play them in the first round. Qualifying rounds are really meant for up-and-coming players to get an opportunity to earn a spot in the main draw of the PPA Tour. Vivian is a top level player and definitely a large step above the level of the regular qualifying players.
So the PPA made new rules. Essentially, they boil down to this: A player in the top 50 of PPA Points cannot play qualifiers. Any player who is not a signed UPA player, has to play qualifiers.
This is the verbiage in the “How it Works” section of the PPA Tour website:
Because that verbiage was a little vague and confusing, PPA Player Liaison, Dillon Segur, recently sent a message out to players outlining details around contracted and non-contracted players. Through sources, The Dink was able to obtain this letter:
This clarification makes sense - the PPA wants qualifiers to be actual qualifying players, and not seasoned pros who are not contracted.
However, this forces unsigned players to choose one of three options: not play on the PPA Tour at all, OR play PPA Challenger Series, OR sign a contract to play with the UPA exclusively.
A very good up-and-coming player like Freeman is forced to make these decisions. He already had top talent lined up for the year on the PPA Tour, but since he is not a Gold Card member, he cannot play with those partners. Since he is not top 50 (yet), he could play qualifiers or on the Challenger Series, but he cannot do so with any signed UPA players.
Whatever the contract offer is from UPA to Freeman, it doesn’t seem like it is financially lucrative enough for him to sign, despite the chance to play with some of the top players in the game.
After publication of this article, Freeman reposted The Dink's X post and said this:
This is not about the money. I just played my first PPA in June, why do I have to sign a 3 year contract to play with my friends?
— Max Freeman (@maxfreeman_pb) February 9, 2025
For those that don’t know, most top player contracts end in 2 yrs. It just makes no sense for me to agree to this. https://t.co/8kZ299d9A1
For now, Freeman is planning on playing on the APP Tour in 2025, and just got done playing in the World Pickleball League in India, for the Hyderabad Super Stars.
It looks like Ben Johns is going to be looking for a partner in the PPA Cape Coral. Does anybody know of a signed UPA player looking for a partner?
