This 18-Year-Old is the Best Pickleball Player in World
Anwar Stetson
A Young GOAT for a Young Sport
Pickleball is sweeping the nation, and this teenager is proving that it can be a real career path for young athletes.
Anna Leigh Waters is 18 years old and dominating her competition. She’s currently the No. 1-ranked professional in Women’s Singles, Women’s Doubles, and Mixed Doubles.
Her fierce competition includes athletes twice her age. But the young star has plenty of experience. Waters joined the Professional Pickleball Association (PPA) tour at age 12, becoming the youngest pro in pickleball history. As of today, the 5’6” right-hander has won an astounding 156 gold medals and over a dozen Triple Crowns.
And she won’t stop winning. Over the weekend, Waters and doubles partner Ben Johns won the Veolia Bristol Open Mixed Doubles at a PPA tournament in Tennessee. Waters has been featured on outlets like ESPN talking about her journey, and she is a Forbes 30 for 30 recipient. She even walked the red carpet at the ESPYs in July.
Adding more legitimacy to the sport, Waters teamed up with tennis legend Andre Agassi earlier this year for a PPA U.S. Open tournament. The event was Agassi’s pickleball debut.
The 54-year-old’s inclusion brought many eyes to the burgeoning sport, which is often referred to as a more accessible, less grueling version of tennis.
Serving Big Numbers
Pickleball has lighter equipment and a smaller court than the typical tennis court. It also has a “non-volley zone,” which is an area close to the net where players can’t stand, preventing them from crowding the net and smashing the ball. The sport’s accessibility has contributed to its growing popularity.
A 2024 CNBC report found that over the past seven years, the number of outdoor public park pickleball courts in major cities has skyrocketed 650%. A new Collegiate Pickleball league has young athletes competing for a $100,000 prize.
What once was just a weekend summer hobby is turning into a potentially lucrative opportunity for young athletes.
By lucrative, I mean very lucrative. In 2024, Waters’ agent told Forbes that the teenage phenom was on pace to make $3 million that year. Waters earns even more than her best male counterparts. Ben Johns, a top male player, made “only” $2.5 million by comparison.
The Next Generation
Coming from an athletic family, Waters has won doubles titles with her mom, Leigh Waters, as her partner. They were both introduced to the sport by Anna Leigh’s grandfather. Leigh played tennis at South Carolina, where dad Stephen played college golf.
Waters was homeschooled, receiving her high school diploma in 2024. She played tennis and soccer before turning to America’s skyrocketing obsession.
She admitted to ABC News that she initially wasn’t interested in the sport. In 2017, her family evacuated out of Florida to her grandparents’ home in Pennsylvania, escaping Hurricane Irma. In their boredom, the family picked up the sport and brought it back with them when they returned south.
“It’s something you can do with your entire family,” Anna Leigh said. Now she’s pushing back perceived stigmas about pickleball by appearing in this ad, which claps back at doubters who say Pickleball is “not a sport.”
With growing legitimacy, it’s only a matter of time before the sport explodes at the high school level. As an early indicator, the platform DUPR is sponsoring its own competitive high school tournaments.
Montgomery County, Maryland, announced in 2024 that Pickleball would be introduced as a varsity sport in all 25 of its schools.
Not every kid can be the next Tom Brady, LeBron James, or Aaron Judge. But the next generation of youth athletes could be the pioneers of something entirely different, on the small court with a racket in hand.