She’s in her seventh full season as a professional and fourth as her sport’s top-ranked female.
That’s obviously some quality stuff, but toss in the fact she’s only 18, and it’s a real head-turner.
Anna Leigh Waters isn’t just the top-ranked player on the Professional Pickleball Association tour, but No. 1 in all three divisions: singles, doubles and mixed doubles.
In women’s doubles, Waters changed partners this spring, from Catherine Parenteau to Anna Bright. And talk about synergetic superiority, her longtime mixed-doubles partner remains the longtime No. 1 male player — Ben Johns.
Overall, she has won an astounding 96% of her 578 career PPA matches. Watch her play and you see why.
There’s great hand-eye coordination, obviously, but also great footwork (she played a lot of pre-teen soccer) and, in terms of style, a desire to force the action with aggressive shots rather than dink with patience while awaiting an opponent’s mistake.
Waters was 10 years old when her grandparents taught her and her mother, Leigh, to play pickleball. She was 11 when she first partnered with her mom in tournament play and just 12 when she began playing the professional tour — Leigh, a former Division I tennis player (University of South Carolina) and practicing attorney, quit her law job to play pickleball.
While Leigh now focuses mostly on coaching, she and Anna Leigh paired in April to defend their title in the U.S. Open Pickleball Championship. That’s where Anna Leigh famously paired with tennis legend Andre Agassi in mixed-doubles — they lost in the second round.
Anna Leigh and her family live in Boynton Beach, south of West Palm Beach. Along with some two dozen PPA tournaments during the year, she also competes in Major League Pickleball, the sport’s team competition. Her New Jersey Fives team was in town last week for MLP Daytona Beach at Pictona in Holly Hill.
Anna Leigh reportedly earned over $3 million in 2024. The earnings have come from tournament purses as well as a roster of endorsement deals with equipment and clothing companies, as well as Carvana, which is title sponsor for the PPA Tour.
Where does Anna Leigh Waters find pickleball motivation these days?
News-Journal: You’ve spent most of your teen years ranked first in both doubles and singles. What could possibly be a goal these days beyond seeing how long you can stay there?
Waters: “That’s definitely a goal. I think you have to think that way just to push yourself. I base a lot of my success on, ‘Am I learning new shots, am I getting better?’ … that type of thing. Not on whether I’m winning more matches, because it’s hard to win more matches than I’m winning now.
“I’m hoping the Olympics will someday be a thing and I can go compete and do something there. I think growing the sport is something I also really want to help with. That’s not success on the court as much as off the court.”
N-J: Speaking of growing the game, if you hang around pickleball courts anywhere, you notice it’s getting younger and younger with every passing week.
Waters: “For sure, for sure. When I was going to tournaments when I was 10, 11, 12, I was the only kid at the tournament. And now, the last PPA (pro-am) I played, there were 200 juniors playing in the tournament.”
N-J: Earlier, you mentioned trying to learn new shots. What’s a new shot you’ve been working on?
Waters: “My forehand speed-up.”
N-J: You mean interrupting a dinking rally with an aggressive forehand?
Waters: “Yes. That’s when you attack. Now I think it’s one of my more confident shots. I see success in that. It’s a lot of spin. That’s something I was struggling with; I was having trouble with the spin aspect of it. But it’s my mom’s best shot, and she was able to teach it to me very well.
“It used to be something I wasn’t as comfortable hitting. I think trying to be more aggressive in general is something I’ve been working on. The game is getting faster on the court. You definitely need to have all the shots.”
N-J: With shots like that, do you think it helps that you’re physically stronger than you were when you first started playing?
Waters: “I’m sure it does, just like every shot. I feel like I’m hitting some shots now I couldn’t have physically hit when I was younger.”
How long can Anna Leigh Waters keep it going?
N-J: Do you have some sort of career timeline in mind?
Waters: “I’ve been playing professional tournaments since I was 11. So I’ve already been playing for seven years. I still love the sport and enjoy playing, so I’m definitely not at the burnout stage yet. Maybe in 10 years I’ll feel that way. As long as I’m enjoying it, I’m trying to keep training hard. It’s something I love to do. And I’m also making money doing it. It’s my job.”
N-J: Speaking of which, have you splurged on anything?
Waters: “No, no. Every now and then you have to indulge yourself and buy yourself something as a reward. I think if you buy a lot of smaller things, every couple months, instead of waiting two years to buy something big, I think it makes you happier.”
N-J: So no Mercedes or Lamborghini in your driveway?
Waters: “Carvana actually gave me a car — a very nice car. So I didn’t have to buy that for myself.”
Anna Leigh Waters put the tennis racket away long ago
N-J: If you had stayed with tennis or even started playing tennis now, how good do you think you’d be?
Waters: “It’s hard for me to say. One of my biggest problems in tennis was the serve and I think it would take me more than two months to figure out my serve. But I think if I really took the time, I could play professionally. If I really trained and hit a lot of balls.
“When I was young, everyone thought that I could play professionally. We have no idea if that would’ve happened or not, but that’s what people were thinking.”
N-J: Players at your level appear to have a different warmup routine than the rest of us.
Waters: “I usually jog around the court a couple of times. And I like to do dynamic stretching. You don’t want to do static stretching before you play because that actually makes you more prone to tearing something. A lot of people think you should stretch before you play, but I like to do more dynamic movement. If it’s going to be a singles match, I’ll also do a couple of sprints.”
N-J: With all the travel the last several years, I assume you were home-schooled.
Waters: “I went to school through second grade, and then we moved from North Carolina to Florida. We didn’t know the schools down there. My grandma was a teacher, and my mom asked her if she could come home-school me for a year while we figured out a school to go to. And we liked it so much, and I was playing a ton of sports, so it made sense. I graduated last year at 17.”
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2025-06-15 09:02:01