{"id":103,"date":"2024-02-23T17:58:37","date_gmt":"2024-02-23T17:58:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bestpickleballcoaches.com\/index.php\/2023\/08\/14\/how-15-year-old-pickleballer-anna-leigh-waters-is-shaking-up-the-the-washington-post\/"},"modified":"2024-02-23T10:58:37","modified_gmt":"2024-02-23T17:58:37","slug":"how-15-year-old-pickleballer-anna-leigh-waters-is-shaking-up-the-the-washington-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bestpickleballcoaches.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/23\/how-15-year-old-pickleballer-anna-leigh-waters-is-shaking-up-the-the-washington-post\/","title":{"rendered":"How 15-year-old pickleballer Anna Leigh Waters is shaking up the … – The Washington Post"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anna Leigh Waters is 15 years old, which is almost a footnote considering all the unexpected turns and opportunities of the past year. Not long ago, she was a promising soccer player with her sights set on college, perhaps even the pros. That feels like a long time ago.
Now she is one of the biggest stars in professional pickleball, her skyrocketing prospects aligning perfectly with the explosion of the sport.
Nearly every week, she\u2019s posting wins in singles, doubles and mixed doubles, the \u201ctriple crown\u201d at Professional Pickleball Association tournaments. She\u2019s locked into major endorsements with bigger deals probably on the horizon and has played with swimmer Michael Phelps, actor Jamie Foxx, boxing great Sugar Ray Leonard and golfers Scottie Scheffler and Jordan Spieth.
\u201cThe timing has been just absolutely perfect,\u201d said her mother and doubles partner, Leigh Waters<\/a>. \u201cBetween her age and the way her game is developing and the way the sport is developing, it\u2019s all like coming together.\u201d
Pickleball is exploding, and it\u2019s getting messy<\/a><\/span>
In hotel lobbies, restaurants and airports, pickleball obsessives are taking notice of the charismatic teen with the bobbing blonde ponytail who\u2019s poised to sit on the pickleball throne for years to come. A flight attendant on a recent trip to California begged for a selfie. A woman in Las Vegas chased her down the Strip with a camera in hand. At tournaments, fans push their babies in Anna Leigh\u2019s arms for a quick photograph.
\u201cThe first time I was like, I’ve never even held a baby before,\u201d she said with a laugh.
Anna Leigh enters this week\u2019s n2Grate DC Open in College Park, Md.<\/a>, having won 11 of the past 12 events she has played, including triple crown<\/a> wins in three of the past four tournaments.
Though just a high school junior, she has taken a professionalized approach to a sport that has graduated from a weekend and after-work hobby to a booming business. In recent weeks, Tom Brady and LeBron James signed<\/a> on as investors with one of PPA\u2019s rivals, Major League Pickleball, and major corporations are angling to get in the space. Anna Leigh finds herself at the forefront of this rapidly expanding universe.
\u201cShe\u2019s in a unique place right now in terms of her dominance,\u201d said her agent, Kelly Wolf, who has spent years at Octagon working with tennis players. \u201cIf you\u2019re a brand and you\u2019re trying to reach a certain demographic or you want to put a foot in pickleball, she\u2019s just a fantastic ambassador. It\u2019s her age, her personality, her ability to communicate with people, her love for the sport.\u201d
Even for a sport that is only recently bursting into the mainstream, Anna Leigh\u2019s rise has been meteoric. Five years ago, she was proficient with a tennis racket but had never held a pickleball paddle. As Hurricane Irma started ripping through the Caribbean, her family evacuated from their home in Delray Beach, Fla., to Allentown, Pa., where they stayed with Leigh\u2019s parents.
LeBron James is buying into the pickleball explosion<\/a><\/span>
Neil Eichelberger urged his daughter and granddaughter, 10 at the time, to visit the community pickleball courts with him to help pass the time.
\u201cAnd we were like, no,\u201d Anna Leigh recalled with a laugh. \u201cIt didn’t even seem like a sport to us in the beginning.\u201d
They eventually did hit the pickleball court and were quickly hooked. For two weeks in Allentown, they played two or three times a day. When they returned to Florida, they visited the local pickleball club and began to take the sport seriously. Leigh entered a tournament later that year in Dallas, and when her doubles partner pulled out, Anna Leigh, 11 at the time, took the spot. They finished second.
\u201cThat was when we kind of decided like, okay, this can work; we can do this. She\u2019s not too young; she\u2019s ready,\u201d Leigh said.
They quickly made waves on the budding pro circuit. The sport, long popular in retirement communities and appealing to a wide range of ability levels, was a finesse game even at the pro level, with carefully placed shots and soft dinks over the net. The Waters duo charged in with their tennis background, muscling groundstrokes across the net and injecting power and speed into almost every shot.
\u201cWhen we first started, everyone would either make fun of us or tell us we were playing the game incorrectly,\u201d Anna Leigh said.
\u201cWe had top pros, top coaches tell us, \u2018You\u2019ll never win playing that way,\u2019 \u201d her mother added. \u201cWe just didn\u2019t listen because it just didn\u2019t feel right to us.\u201d
The pandemic sidelined the family for the 2020 season; the Waters clan avoided travel and skipped several tournaments. When they returned to the tour in 2021, they found that the game had evolved and nearly all of the top players had adapted their power approach.
Meanwhile, Anna Leigh had continued with her budding soccer career, splitting her time between her soccer club and pickleball training. She was already hearing from college coaches and had an offer to train in Germany.
But about a year ago, the Waters family began to get a sense of what a pickleball future might look like. Potential sponsors kept calling. Prize money was increasing. Television networks were expressing interest in the sport.
Leigh was a practicing attorney and decided to press pause on her legal career to focus on the sport \u2014 both managing and playing alongside her daughter. And in January, with her pickleball credentials well established, Anna Leigh quit soccer, which had become too taxing on her body but also her time.
\u201cI think it was just the timing of it all,\u201d Leigh said. \u201cAnd really the opportunities are just insane right now for her in the sport.\u201d
She has a multiyear endorsement contract with Fila, the sports apparel company. Anna Leigh competes exclusively in Fila gear, and the company, which first introduced a pickleball-specific shoe in 2019, turns to her for help in both product design and testing.
\u201cI love that Anna Leigh is the face of the sport because it shows how much the sport is really accessible to all,\u201d said Lauren Mallon, Fila\u2019s senior director of marketing and strategic partnerships. \u201cI love the energy that she brings to the court. She has a great passion. She is dynamic to watch. I love her enthusiasm. She\u2019s always so positive.\u201d
Anna Leigh also has deals with a water company, a paddle manufacturer and a jewelry business. She is a six-figure annual earner right now but could be on the cusp of much more. Her agent says she\u2019s being strategic, but the young player is poised to take on more sponsors and could be wearing company logos on her playing outfits next season.
\u201cWe\u2019ll be on the phone with these companies, and they\u2019re like, I can\u2019t believe a 15-year-old is on this call,\u201d Leigh said. \u201cIt\u2019s just not something that a kid is normally involved in. And the size of the contracts for a 15-year-old are kind of mind-blowing.\u201d
Perspective: Pickleball raises our social capital. That\u2019s what America needs.<\/a><\/span>
The family\u2019s approach is very much borrowed from the tennis world. Anna Leigh travels to big events with a personal trainer, who helps her warm up before matches and cool down after. Her mom serves as her doubles partner, coach and business manager. Anna Leigh also regularly meets back home with a mental coach, who has helped her navigate the pressures that come with being a phenom.
\u201cWhen I first started playing, it was just like I had nothing to lose and I was trying to be the one to take down the No. 1 players and stuff. So it was kind of easier in the start,\u201d she said. \u201c…What I like to tell myself when I\u2019m on the court is that there\u2019s a reason that I\u2019m ranked No. 1. I don\u2019t think, \u2018Oh, I have so much to lose\u2019 \u2014 but I can think, \u2018I have so much to gain, I get to show you why I\u2019m No. 1.\u2019 \u201d
For Anna Leigh, there\u2019s less pressure in doubles, which is pickleball\u2019s more prized event. In mixed doubles, she plays alongside Ben Johns<\/a>, the Maryland native who at 23 is already the PPA\u2019s all-time winningest player. And in doubles, she\u2019s with Leigh, 43, which pairs the tour\u2019s youngest pro player with its oldest.
They credit familial intuition for much of their success on the court, where trust is inherent and communication tacit.
\u201cWe\u2019re just able to be, like, one shot ahead of everybody because we know what the other person\u2019s going to do,\u201d said Leigh. \u201cAnd there\u2019s not many other teams that have that.\u201d
The family wants to be thoughtful to make sure Anna Leigh is up to the rigors of a full-time schedule that probably will see her on the road for 24 weeks next year. She is home-schooled by her grandmother, Ann Eichelberger, a retired schoolteacher, and is already a year ahead, on track to graduate next year, her family says. After high school, she probably will stick with pickleball and pursue college on the side or down the road.
\u201cI feel like college is always going to be there,\u201d Anna Leigh said.
Her parents stress that Anna Leigh can scale back if she needs, but the young phenom isn\u2019t wired that way. None of this was expected, but the whole family is seizing the opportunities that keep arising.
\u201cIf I didn\u2019t love it, then it might be an issue. But I feel like right now it just all works out,\u201d Anna Leigh said. \u201cI\u2019ve always loved, like, training and playing the sport in general, so, like, it doesn\u2019t really feel like work. It just kind of feels like fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Anna Leigh Waters is 15 years old, which is almost a footnote considering all the unexpected turns and opportunities of the past year. Not long ago, she was a promising soccer player with her sights set on college, perhaps even the pros. That feels like a long time ago.Now she is one of the biggest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestpickleballcoaches.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestpickleballcoaches.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestpickleballcoaches.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestpickleballcoaches.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestpickleballcoaches.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bestpickleballcoaches.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2774,"href":"https:\/\/bestpickleballcoaches.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103\/revisions\/2774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestpickleballcoaches.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestpickleballcoaches.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestpickleballcoaches.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}