Tennis great Agassi to make pro pickleball debut
File photo. Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi high-five each other as they celebrate a point during a doubles match in Las Vegas in February.
Photo:
Getty Images via AFP / Ethan Miller
Former tennis world number one Andre Agassi will make his professional debut in the fast-growing sport of pickleball next week when he teams up with top ranked Anna Leigh Waters for the mixed doubles at the US Open Pickleball Championships.
Invented in 1965 by a group of American friends, pickleball is a fast-paced paddle sport similar to tennis and badminton played on smaller courts using a perforated plastic ball, and interest has skyrocketed in recent years.
Waters, 18, is the Professional Pickleball Association's top-ranked player in the world for singles, doubles and mixed doubles and Agassi said he would likely weigh her down.
"She's probably sick of winning so much, and that's why she called me and asked me to play," Agassi, who won eight tennis Grand Slams among his 60 ATP Tour-level titles, told CNBC on Tuesday.
The 54-year-old added that he did not see him joining the growing ranks of pro pickleball players after the tournament, which takes place in Naples, Florida.
"If I had the luxury of bandwidth to focus all my energy on just playing and body recovery and all that stuff, that would be a joy. But I don't. I'm in a different season now," he said.
- Reuters
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
NZ Herald
17 hours ago
- NZ Herald
New Zealand Rugby and Gallagher Insurance announce multi-year global partnership
New Zealand Rugby (NZR) have announced a new sponsorship with American company Gallagher Insurance with the company logo to appear on both the training and match day shorts of all NZR's national teams including the All Blacks. It comes two months after NZR and previous sponsor Ineos settled after the
Otago Daily Times
4 days ago
- Otago Daily Times
Film focuses on joy, fears of motherhood in dream job
Inspired by the ups and downs of motherhood, an acclaimed Wānaka skier tells her story of being pregnant while working as a mountain guide. Dear Superhero, directed by Jase Hancox and Corinna Halloran, is one of the many films set to premiere in the upcoming New Zealand Mountain Film Festival in Wānaka. The 17-minute film follows the story of Janina Kuzma, a Wānaka skier and mountain guide who competed in the 2014 Winter Olympics and was later named Central Otago Sportswoman of the Year for her achievements. Ms Kuzma found out she was pregnant in April last year, something that brought her joy as she had looked forward to starting a family. This joy was soon followed by fear as she was faced with the reality of telling co-workers the life-changing news and juggling motherhood and her dream job. As a contract mountain guide, she worked on skifields across the Southern Lakes region and even some in North America. The job can be seen as physically dangerous, and Ms Kuzma was anxious her co-workers would not think she could work during her pregnancy. "It can be a very male-dominated field," she said. "So I just hid my pregnancy as long as I could, just because of the fear of feeling like they thought I shouldn't be in the mountains guiding." For six months, no-one at work knew Ms Kuzma was pregnant. When she finally told her team, she was met with a wave of support and everyone had been really happy for her. She admitted that her feelings had come from a fear of being perceived differently in a physically demanding job. It was this lingering concern that encouraged her to reach out to her sponsors at North Face and suggest the film idea even before she got pregnant. Wānaka director Jase Hancox jumped on board but found it difficult at at first to direct the film on his own. As a father of two, he said he was unable to relate to Ms Kuzma's story and found it helpful to bring on American director Corinna Halloran. Ms Kuzma worked with the film directors and was also able to invite Canadian snowboarder and mother Leanne Pelosi and Swedish skier and doula Evelina Nilsson to be part of the film. The storyline focuses on the experiences of women in the snow sport industry as they work through raising families and not giving up on their life-long passions. "It's an exploration of the power and the complexity of motherhood and just what it takes while chasing my dreams in the mountains," Ms Kuzma said. She hoped the film spoke to all women, not just athletes, who might feel the pressures of raising a family and following their ambitions. The film is set to premier on Saturday, June 21, during the 2025 New Zealand Mountain Film and Book Festival in Wānaka.
NZ Herald
5 days ago
- NZ Herald
Rugby must tackle its coaching respect issue after Milton Haig quits
This focus on high-performance coaching set-ups is a result of the surprise announcement on Wednesday that New Zealand Under-20 head coach Milton Haig, having steered the team to a Rugby Championship title a few weeks ago, has stepped down just days before the team is due to depart for the Junior World Championships in Italy. Haig, an experienced coach who has strong provincial experience in New Zealand, was at the helm of Georgia at the 2015 and 2019 World Cups and has spent time with the Japanese club Suntory Sungoliath, said there were differences in opinion between him and his assistants about the team's style of rugby. He obviously felt those different views were irreconcilable and that, if he didn't have the support of his fellow coaches (Jarrad Hoeata, Alex Robertson and Craig Dunlea), it would be best for the team – specifically the players – if he fell on his sword. It was the honourable thing to do – a selfless act that demonstrated a recognition that ego and personal ambition can never be put ahead of the interests of the team. But can the same be said of his assistants, who, based on the facts as they have been presented, didn't seem to recognise that they were there to support and facilitate Haig's strategic vision and not impose their own? Milton Haig, when working with the US women's team. Photo / Getty Images Haig's actions may have been honourable, but the longer-term ramifications of a head coach sacrificing himself to appease his assistants are potentially significant and dangerous for the elite game. Whatever happened to sucking it up? To not liking something but doing it anyway because that's your job? There are workplaces across the country where people won't agree with the strategy being pursued by the boss, or don't particularly like their management style, but they get on with doing what is required and requested because this is part and parcel of being an adult and beholden to uphold professional standards. Rugby, to its credit, has tried to build collaborative coaching environments where assistants and specialists are encouraged to own their field, but perhaps there needs to be a re-evaluation in the wake of Haig's departure about how far down the track they want to go in this shift away from authoritarian regimes. There's room for assistants to be empowered, but not so much that they forget the subordinate nature of their roles. The best environments should operate with an element of professional friction, but not so much that the pushback undermines or disrespects the head coach's ultimate authority. Haig's unexpected decision to quit is not quite the isolated act it may seem. It marks the third time in as many years that a New Zealand national team has had some kind of dramatic and sudden shift in its internal coaching dynamics. In 2022, the Black Ferns were left scrambling to put a coaching team together only five months before the World Cup. Last year, All Blacks assistant Leon MacDonald quit after just five tests. MacDonald's departure was explained as a lack of compatibility between him and head coach Scott Robertson. Leaving aside the question of why this discovery wasn't made earlier, when they worked together at the Crusaders, it does suggest that there is a creeping problem of people thinking that their ambition to be a head coach should be catered for in any role they take. Something seems wrong with the wider culture – that there has been a failure to manage expectations, define boundaries and instil within all those entering the elite coaching ranks that teams need not only a clear hierarchy, but for that hierarchy to be recognised, respected and understood. New Zealand's great strength in previous eras was the ability of high-performance coaching teams to be able to disagree but commit. Between 2004 and 2011, when the three heavyweight figures of Graham Henry, Steve Hansen and Wayne Smith coached the All Blacks, the latter two didn't always agree with what the former was trying to achieve or the way he wanted them to do it, but they knew and respected that what they felt was ultimately not important. It was Henry's vision they were there to implement, not their own. Maybe now that a generation of Millennials is starting to win high-performance roles, that same ingrained respect for the hierarchy isn't there. Someone needs to get on top of this and restore order before every national coaching team is undermined or disrupted by the chaos that unfolds when there is confusion about who is in charge.
