Anna Leigh Waters Sweeps The Pro Pickleball Association Atlanta Championships

Forbes

20-05-2025

The Professional Pickleball Association (PPA) returned to action after a month's break to host one of their biggest and most popular events of the season: the 2025 Veolia Atlanta Pickleball Championships. The host site is the amazing Peachtree Corners Life Time facility, which is normally a marquee tennis facility that's completely taken over for a week by the tour to become one of the top spots all year.
Fun fact: this event was the first PPA tournament I ever covered in person, two years ago in May 2023. Much has changed on tour since then, but the energy and popularity of this tournament remains just as great now as it was two years ago.
Click here for the Pickleballtournaments.com home page for the event, where you can get tournament details, draw sheets, and results.
Here's a quick recap of notable news items of import to the tour that have happened since our last PPA event was held in North Carolina more than a month ago.
- The day after the NC Open ended, PPA No. 1 Anna Leigh Waters ended her long-time partnership with Catherine Parenteau. She almost immediately picks her biggest rival in Anna Bright to become her going-forward partner. The pair played seven tournaments together between January 2023 and August 2023 as ALW bounced between the two players before settling on CP from that point forward; they won all seven tournaments and are undefeated as a pair.
- MLP kicked off its season with its first two events. The TL/DR summary of Orlando and Columbus? The Dallas Flash and St. Louis Shock look unstoppable, Ben and Collin Johns didn't like the lighting in Ohio and paid handsomely to quit the event, and ALW & Patriquin don't like each other.
- Just ahead of Atlanta, The PPA tour re-ups with Carvana to sign a new multi-year agreement to be the title sponsor of the tour. PPA owner Tom Dundon holds a significant stake of Carvana, so in some ways this him taking money out of one pocket to put into another, but it also doesn't happen in a vacuum.
With that said, let's recap the action.
My leading indicator of the size and depth of pro draws at an event is always Men's Singles qualifying. This week's draw numbered 86, which is a high mark as far as I can remember. True to form, some top qualifying seeds advanced but some well-known names didn't even make the main draw (including tough players like Max Wild and Ammar Wazir).
With more and more players being signed to contracts by the UPA and guaranteeing their entry directly into the 'main draw,' the eight qualifiers weren't even guaranteed a slot in the round of 64, and some of the matches
The singles draw was dealt a shock early, as qualifier and No. 65 seed Alexander Crum (career accomplishments: two bronze medals in singles on the APP) toppled the No. 1 seed Federico Staksrud to open play on Tuesday. Staksrud felt the need to make some 'sour grapes' comments about how 'Pickleball is becoming like mini-tennis' and about the Life Time ball in use was a 'disaster' (a post now deleted), but all credit to Crum, who won twice more before falling to Dylan Frazier in the quarters.
A side note: Crum's performance in this Slam event will net him enough points to break into the PPA's top 50, which unfortunately subjects him to a rankings/entry loophole the PPA enacted earlier this year in a gambit to force players to sign exclusivity contracts. Since he'll now be ranked inside the top 50, he cannot play qualifiers … but since he's not a signed player, he can't be entered into the main draw. It does seem counter intuitive that the tour that claims to be where 'all the best' players play has a rule in place specifically to ban players once they get sufficiently good (but are not signed).
There were a slew of other 30+ seeds who made decent runs, including No. 49 Navratil with two upset wins, No. 35 Jay Devilliers with an upset of No. 5 Vich and No. 11 Tardio before falling, No. 46 Brandon French taking out No. 19 Yates Johnson, and No. 56 Tom Protzek beating No. 9 Loyd in the first round. Lastly, a special shout-out to newly PPA signed No. 52 Jhonnatan Medina Alvarez, who plays out of my home club in Richmond, who won his first two rounds before falling in the 16s.
With the topside opened up by Crum, it was No. 8 Dylan Frazier who took control, advancing into the semis to face No. 3 Garnett from the top half. The bottom half's quarters ended up chalk, with No. 2 Hunter Johnson downing Duong and his new Sypik paddle and Ben Johns (now ranked all the way down at No. 4) winning an excellent tactical quarter final match against No. 7 Alshon. Alshon possibly played the most entertaining match of the event in the round prior, downing the always vocal Julian Arnold in an 11-9 three game thriller that featured a plethora of outbursts to go along with amazing shot-making from both sides.
In the semis, Garnett made fast work of Frazier to get to his first singles final since last December's tour finals, while Johns, playing in just his 4th singles event of the season, came from behind to topple Hunter Johnson to return to the final. In the final, a clearly depleted Johns did what he does best; win on the sports' biggest stage, claiming the 2000 point gold medal and putting himself in great shape for the year end tour finals race. It is Johns' 42nd career singles gold medal, and his 2nd in three appearances this year.
Gold: Ben Johns. Silver: Connor Garnett. Bronze: Hunter Johnson.
Sometimes the PPA doesn't even need to hold Women's Pro Singles qualifiers. Not this weekend, where 33 women attempted to qualify into the main draw, by far a record on tour. Only one of those qualifiers was able to get out of the main draw's first round; No. 55 seed and two-time APP singles medalist Maria Klokotzky, who trounced fellow No. 11 Genie Bouchard 2,6 to move into the 32s. There she fell to recently new UPA signee Felicity Di Laura, who herself had a solid upset win in the first round over No. 20 Alix Troung. No. 19 Liz Truluck had a solid event, upsetting No. 8 Devidze and advancing to the quarters and thus becoming the only non-top 8 seed to break into the chalk back-end of the draw.
In the quarters, No. 1 Anna Leigh Waters ground out a win against No. 5 Buckner, who hung in there before losing 7,5. No. 4 Parris Todd ended Truluck's run with a dominant 2,2 win to force a shot at the No. 1 player. Kate Fahey, now all the way up to No. 2, made fast work of No. 6 Lea Jansen 3,4, and long-time top two ranked Parenteau (now all the way down at the 7-seed here) upset No. 3 Christian to return to the semis.
In the semis, both top players Waters & Fahey made relatively fast work of their opponents (Todd and Parenteau respectively) to set up the No. 1 vs No. 2 final that the neutrals were hoping for. In said final, Fahey rebounded from a quick 11-1 game loss to grind out an 11-7 game two win to force the deciding third game. Unfortunately, Waters found another gear (as she usually does) and swept Fahey away 11-1 in the third for the win. This is Waters' astounding 51st career PPA Singles gold.
Gold: Anna Leigh Waters. Silver: Kate Fahey. Bronze: Parris Todd.
I firmly believe that Mixed Pro Doubles is the hardest draw to win. There are now a sufficiently large enough number of signed pros with 'automatic main draw' spots that the draw now needs to start with a nearly full round of 128, with qualifiers being seeded into the 80s to make way for all the teams. Household names on tour are seeded in the 60s now, and the round of 32 now routinely features past gold medal winners. Combine this depth with the dominance still shown by the top seeded teams (Waters & Johns, the Johnson siblings, and whoever Alshon is playing with on a given weekend), and you have an awfully tall order to break onto the podium all around.
Despite the overall depth of Mixed, it also routinely highlights the concentration of talent at the top. We saw that in Atlanta, as seven of the top eight mixed seeds advanced into the quarters (the sole omission being No. 3 Staksrud & Parenteau being upset in the 16s). The top seeds Waters & Johns had little trouble advancing to the final, winning their quarters and semis matches easily. The No. 2 seeded Johnson sibling team couldn't repeat their feat from North Carolina (where they gave Waters & Johns a rare h2h loss), falling in the semis to the tough Christian Alshon/Etta Tuionetoa team.
The final was one way traffic for the top seeds, who cruised to a 3,2,7 win for their astounding 49th Mixed medal together.
Gold: Waters & Johns. Silver: Alshon & Tuionetoa. Bronze:
There were 60 TEAMS of qualifiers here. That's 120 men attempting to qualify into the main draw. That's what makes this specific event special. Unlike in the singles draw, we did not see too many of the qualifying teams make waves in the main draw, perhaps a nod to the depth on the regular PPA tour at this point.
Like in Mixed, the top pairs had little problems getting to Friday in the progression draw. Seven of the tournament's top eight seeds advanced with mostly little fanfare. Much attention has been given to Ben Johns' new partner selection of Gabriel Tardio, but some other attention-crazed splits are starting to gel. Last fall, the well-publicized split of JW Johnson & Dylan Frazier has now settled with JW's new partner being established as lefty youngster CJ Klinger; the pair took on the formerly unbeatable Staksrud/Patriquin team in the quarters and came out on top 11-8 in the third to make a statement. Former partners met up (as one could inevitably guess) in the semis, with JW advancing over Dylan in another 11-8 third game nail-biter to secure the Sunday final.
From the bottom half, Johns & Tardio cruised past long-time rivals Wright & Newman in the quarters, then got a solid come-from behind win over the No. 3 pair of Christian Alshon & Andrei Daescu, who many in social media have tabbed to be 'the next big thing' on tour. Not on this day, as the Johns/Tardio pairing worked its way back into the match and secured their fourth straight gold medal match in as many tries.
In the final, JW came to play. He may not have had his 'No 12' Dallas Flash jersey on, but he certainly wanted to make a statement. Johnson & Klinger took the gold in three tight games, 9,9,7. Johns & Tardio aren't a finished product yet, but certainly they've been consistently in the finals since joining up in February of 2025.
Gold: Johnson & Klinger. Silver: Johns & Tardio. Bronze: Alshon & Daescu
With all due respect to the rest of the Women's tour, the storyline here was always going to be the first tournament post Waters-Parenteau split. As things turned out, Waters broke up her long-time rival pairing of Bright & Rohrabacher, and the spurned partners ended up joining forces themselves … and even secured the top seed in Atlanta. It seemed inevitable that the pairs would meet, and indeed both teams found their way into the final.
No. 2 Waters & Bright blew through the bottom half of the draw, not being seriously challenged until the semis. No. 1 Rohrabacher & Parenteau were pushed in both the quarters (where they dropped a game) and the semis, but fulfilled their side of anticipated matchup.
In the final, the pairs came out swinging. There was some question as to how the new Catherine/Rachel team would line up and we got an early answer: Parenteau lined up on the left, while Waters assumed her normal dominant left side position with Bright manning the right hand side. The match ended up being anti-climactic; Waters & Bright cruised to a three game win 4,7,3 and remain undefeated as a pairing. However, battle lines have been drawn, and we have the dawn of a new rivalry on tour.
With the win, Waters sewed up the triple crown at the slam, her 34th on tour. It's such an amazing statistic; Waters has more triple crowns than any other player on tour not named Johns or Parenteau has total golds. And she's just 18.
Gold: Waters & Bright. Silver: Parenteau & Rohrabacher. Bronze: Todd & Black.
The Pro Pickleball Medal Tracker has now been updated with these results; check out this link online for a complete pro medal history for all tours and all pro events dating to the beginnings of all the major pro tours, plus pro events that predated 2020.
Next up on the Pickleball Calendar? According to my Master Pickleball Schedule, the APP's biggest event of the year happens, the NYC Open. There's also a tentative PPA Challenger event in Punta Gorda. Lastly, MLP is back in action in Austin for the 3rd event of the season, and for the first time this year we'll see the Challengers teams in action.
Next up for the PPA? The main tour makes way for MLP for a bit , then return in Mid-June for the Orange County Cup and favorite venue Life Time San Clemente. There's a few PPA Challengers sprinkled in, but the main pros are on MLP duty for a while.
All match stats quoted in this article are courtesy of PickleWave. Visit picklewave.com for the premier source of Pro Pickleball data, including match replays, highlights, stats, and discussion. PickleWave has more than 22,000 matches in its database across all the pro tours.
Other resources I use frequently to cover Pickleball include: