What makes Ben Johns, pro pickleball's greatest player, so good at this still-growing sport?

Even a pro sport that's just getting started can have a GOAT (greatest of all time), and for the sport of pickleball that man is Ben Johns.

Johns is only 23, but no one has had as much success at the pro level as he has.

He has more than 50 Professional Pickleball Association titles. On nine different occasions, he's pulled off the triple crown at a tournament (winning singles, doubles and mixed doubles). He's been the No. 1-ranked player in all three disciplines for most of the last three years, and the jewel of his GOAT crown is an insane 108-match winning streak in singles.

For perspective, the longest singles streak in men's tennis history is 53 by Bjorn Borg.

So how is Johns so good at this sport? It's not like he grew up playing it, or had a pickleball racket in his crib when he was six months old.

The 6-foot-1, University of Maryland grad said it's because pickleball fell right into the "Goldilocks Zone" -- that just-right spot between the two sports he excelled at in tennis and table tennis.

"I was big into tennis and table tennis growing up, and when I reached like my early teens and it came the time to really take it seriously if I was going to do something in either sport, I wasn't really in love with either," Johns said Wednesday during media day for the Margaritaville USA Pickleball National Championships being held at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden through Sunday. "Then when I was in my late teens, I found pickleball, and it was the perfect blend of what I loved about tennis and what I loved about table tennis. It was just right, the Goldilocks Zone."

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Another tasty part of the pickleball porridge for Johns was that he wasn't way behind other people his age like he would've been if he started playing tennis seriously as a late teen.

Everything came together perfectly for Johns. His age, athletic ability, quick hands, mastery of several different strokes and his competitiveness made him a formidable opponent in the fledgling pro pickleball leagues. Add in the fact that he loves the strategic chess match that pickleball provides and he was all in.

Johns considers it an advantage to him that the sport has an "unsolved" quality, meaning there is not a rigid set of rules as far as "the right way" to play, so he can improvise and think on the fly, his favorite part of the game.

"The unsolved aspect of pickleball is really attractive to me because I like the experimentation of learning, but learning in your own way rather than being taught by someone else," he said. "It's kind of like the Wild West, everyone has to think for themselves rather than like in tennis or table tennis where you just put hours and hours in learning to hit the ball the right way, which got boring for me. Pickleball doesn't get boring because it's kind of still new every day."

While almost every pickleball player has a tennis background, the table tennis skill and the penchant for improvised strategy are what set Johns apart.

His mixed doubles partner, uber-talented 15-year-old pickleball star Anna Leigh Waters, weighed in on what makes Johns the best around.

"It's his pickleball IQ, definitely," she said. "He knows what shot to hit at the right time always. He knows when to speed it up, he knows when to dink it. Just getting to play with him and see the way his mind works is really cool because his mind works way different than any other player."

Johns and Waters and all the top pickleball professionals all understand that apart from their skill they were blessed with impeccable timing -- turning pro and being at the top of their game just as the sport is taking off by leaps and bounds.

There are now pickleball tournaments on TV. The prize money and appearance fees are growing almost weekly and there are sponsorship opportunities coming from all directions. In April, Johns signed a deal with JOOLA Pickleball, a global sporting goods company. With JOOLA he designed and produced his signature paddle, the JOOLA Ben Johns Hyperion CFS 16. It's the pickleball equivalent of an NBA player coming out with his own shoe.

The pickleball boom was not something that Johns envisioned happening so quickly and so robustly. And to be in on a new pro sport on the ground floor (actually pro pickleball has technically existed for almost 20 years, but not like what we see today) has been a dream come true.

"The growth of the sport is unprecedented. For sure nobody could see it coming, but it has caught fire," Johns said. "It's like riding the wave. It's very fortunate for me that I'm in the sport at the right time and kind of riding the top of that wave, but it's just a cool experience. You don't get to be in a new sport that often that is growing year to year so significantly. I think the sky's the limit for pickleball and I don't see a reason why the trend isn't going to continue."

Shad Powers is a sports columnist for The Desert Sun. Reach him at shad.powers@desertsun.com.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Pickleball: Ben Johns is called sport's top dog