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Forbes
5 days ago
- Sport
- Forbes
The GOATs Win Double Golds And Goins A First Time Winner At Pro Pickleball Association Bristol Open
With Major League Pickleball finally at the end of its 10-week mid-summer schedule, the Professional Pickleball Association (PPA) took advantage of a small window between the regular season and the playoffs to fit in a return to one of the more unique events on its regular calendar; the 2025 Veolia Bristol Open, held at the Bristol Sportsplex in tiny Bristol, Tennessee (population, 27,867). Bristol is perhaps best known for being a twinned city to Bristol, Virginia just across the state line, and the main route through town has a slew of brass state line markers embedded in the middle of State street. Or perhaps more likely, it's home to an annual NASCAR race, held at a speedway quite close to the facility that played host to this event. However, this past weekend it was home to more than 1,000 players, drastically increasing the town's population for the weekend, for the first PPA tournament in weeks. Thanks to the proximity of this event to the MLP events, we saw a slew of players enter singles draws who do not normally do so, in order to get some DreamBreaker practice for next week's MLP playoffs. Bristol is also a bit of a challenge to get to, which led to some absences and experimental partnerships for this 1,000-level PPA event. As a non-cup/non-slam event, The Bristol Open will revert to its one-event-per-day format, with Singles, Doubles, and Mixed being competed Thurs/Fri/Sat, and then hold semis on Saturday and Finals on Sunday in a format that forces qualifiers to the event nearly a week ahead of time, but which allows for the TV broadcasting highlights for its semis and finals. It also makes 'covering' the event much easier for journalists, as we can essentially summarize huge chunks of the recaps as the event goes and not get stuck writing an entire recap on Sunday night. Click here for the home page for the event, where you can get tournament details, draw sheets, and and Noteworthy ahead of the Event Since the PPA was last in action in mid-June, here's news relevant to the tour that's occurred: Interestingly, as play got underway in Bristol, PPA veteran and popular podcast host Tyler Loong posted an interesting tweet on X, saying 'Might be early, but going off many results from Bristol Singles thus far…with LT ball, I think even more upsets will be in play at least for near future. Fast ball = more upsets.' The PPA tour has now changed balls several times, starting with the Franklin X-40 (a very soft ball), moving to the Onix Dura fast-40 (an incredibly hard ball that helped bring power to the game), then moving to the Vulcan vPro (which after some mods played in-between the Dura and the Franklin), and now going with the LT Pro 48, which per Loong and others is a faster ball than Vulcan. Personal experience: Life Time sent me a ball sample a few weeks back, and I took it out to the courts last weekend to play. I had a couple of solid 5.0 players on the court with me trying it out. The ball is incredibly hard and fast, harder than a Dura. It jumps off the face of the paddle as you hit it, not unlike the first time you play with a super-poppy new paddle. Once play started, it was like hitting with a marble, comparatively speaking to the rest of open play (who generally uses Franklins). I tend to agree with Loong here, and I suspect this ball will only continue the move to power players on tour. With that said, let's recap the action. Men's Pro Singles Recap Tyler Loong turned out to be quite prophetic, because the Men's singles draw was a bloodbath for the top seeds. Only one of the top four seeds even made it to the quarter-final round; No. 1 Staksrud, No. 3 Garnett, and No. 4 Vich all exited in the round of 16, albeit to dangerous singles players No. 15 Gabriel Joseph, No. 14 Noe Khlif, and No. 19 John Lucian Goins respectively. Normally this dearth of seeds would pave the way for another Ben Johns win; not this time; the No. 5 seed (forced into the round of 64 for perhaps the first time in his career) was upset in the round of 32 by lefty No. 32 seed Max Freeman. This continues a weird year for Johns in singles on tour: this is the 11th event of the season: Johns has skipped or missed five of them, won two Golds (at the Mesa Cup and the Atlanta slam), then has four upset losses before the medal rounds (to Goins, Ford, Lenhard, and now Freeman). He maintains the #5 spot on the rolling rankings, and the 3,500 points he earned from his two golds will go a long ways towards qualification for the Tour Finals, but he needs to get some more results to get closer to around the 5,000 point mark to ensure he makes the year end tournament. Veteran No. 15 Gabriel Joseph, who won a silver medal in the second ever PPA event in August of 2020, built upon his 12-10 game three win over Staksrud to cruise past No. 21 Grayson Goldin in the quarters and No. 14 Khlif in the semis to ensure just his third career pro final. There, he met the precocious No. 19 seed Goins, who survived an early round match against the challenging Funemizu, upset No. 3 Garnett in the 16s, eased past the underrated No. 18 Adam Harvey in the quarters, and then outlasted No. 7 Christian Alshon in a brutal three-game semifinal. Goins first made waves on tour as a 16yr old in late 2024 with a couple of notable wins, then got an upset win over Ben Johns in March 2025 before settling for the Bronze. There was no settling this weekend for Goins, who split two achingly tough games with Joseph in the final before running away with game three 11-2 for the gold. In a sport filled with teenage sensations winning golds, Goins puts his name on a trophy at the tender age of 17. Gold: John Lucian Goins. Silver: Gabriel Joseph. Bronze: Christian Alshon. Women's Pro Singles Recap The Women's singles draw was missing its two top-ranked players in Waters & Fahey, giving Kaitlyn Christian a No. 1 seed and generally opening up the field for a rare non-ALW winner. As noted earlier, lots of non-regular singles players poured into the draw, and thus we had a slew of top-ranked doubles players playing bright and early on Wednesday morning sporting seeds in the 30s and 40s. No. 49 Callie Smith, No. 18 Jessie Irvine and No. 32 Allyce Jones all suffered early round defeats in their rare singles appearances, though No. 40 Anna Bright reminded the tour of what they could be dealing with week-in and week-out were she playing regularly. She made a run to the quarters with wins over Frantova, Jansen, and Jorja Johnson before falling to No. 9 Judit Castillo in the quarters. No. 1 Kaitlyn Christian stayed above the fray, working through the draw she faced with relative ease to earn the gold medal match spot from the top side of the draw with a 4,9 win over Castillo in the Saturday Semis. Meanwhile, the bottom half of the draw remained relatively chalk, without a single upset from the round of 64 all the way into the finals. No. 2 Parris Todd cruised into the semis without dropping a game, then topped No. 3 Brooke Buckner in a back-and-forth baselining affair 11-8 in the third to earn her fourth gold medal game of the 2025 season. In the final, Todd won her third career PPA gold medal in singles with a tight 12-10, 12-10 win over the top seed Christian. Gold: Parris Todd. Silver: Kaitlyn Christian. Bronze: Brooke Buckner. Mixed Pro Doubles Recap For as much craziness we saw in the Men's singles draw, Mixed continues to be the land of the expected. Seven of the top Eight seeds advanced to the quarters as expected (the only exception was No. 24 Garnett & Rane, who earned their spot in the quarters thanks in part to the withdrawal of the No. 7 seeds Black & Ignatowich), who played into the top seeds and lost fast 6,2 to Anna Leigh Waters & Ben Johns. Waters & Johns, who have a couple of rare losses this year despite their career success together, held serve from the top-half to earn their 53rd career gold medal match appearance together (they were 50-2 heading into this final). Meanwhile, the beasts from Boynton Beach JW and Jorja Johnson, fresh off a 27-2 regular season playing Mixed together in MLP, made their way to the final to set up another No. 1 vs No. 2 showdown for the Mixed title. These two teams have met for gold in three of the last four PPA events, and are beginning to really separate themselves from the pack. The pairs traded the first for games back and forth, each side showing dominance and defense, before the top seeds pulled away in game five to take the title. It's the 51st career gold for Waters & Johns in Mixed. Gold: Waters & Johns. Silver: Johnson & Johnson. Bronze: Bright & Daescu. Men's Pro Doubles Recap When Ben Johns famously split with his brother last winter and picked up the teenage sensation Gabe Tardio as his new partner, there were naysayers. Indeed, the Johns brothers went from winning 11 golds in 2023 to losing prior to the medal rounds for most of 2024 (albeit still winning another 7 golds along the way) before calling it quits as a team in late December 2024. Many said that doubles was passing Ben by, similarly to how singles was passing him by. Well, we're now six tournaments into the Johns-Tardio partnership, and the results are starting to take shape firmly. In a sport where it often takes months for partnerships to gel, for players to define patterns of play with each other and to carve out the spacing and shot selection on the court, Johns & Tardio have seemingly solved it. The pair held off all comers to get to their 6th straight gold medal match in as many tries, and then dominated the final 1,6,2 over No. 6 Vich & Wright. It's their fourth gold medal together and the two players now sit ranked No. 1 and No. 2 on tour by a fair margin. Despite the Johns & Tardio success, the storyline of this event was the huge run of the No. 6 team Jaume Martinez Vich & Matt Wright. The players, individually ranked no. 14 and No. 16 in the Men's Doubles standings, have found success hard to come by in gender doubles this year. Vich has not medaled since a crazy run to the silver in September alongside Tyson McGuffin, a partnership some thought could be one that benefitted both parties. Meanwhile, Matt had a couple of bronze medals with Staksrud last fall, but has been watching his ranking erode as he pushes towards 50 and the game pushes well past the era in which he formerly dominated. Thus it was fantastic to see Wright with his tactical acumen and sharp tongue cruise through the draw to the final. Ironically, Wright's long-time partner Riley Newman also found some rare success at this event, earning the bronze with fellow veteran Devilliers in a throw-back weekend leaderboard that looked more like 2021 than 2025. Gold: Johns & Tardio. Silver: Vich & Wright. Bronze: Newman & Devilliers. Women's Pro Doubles Recap Anna Leigh Waters and Catherine Parenteau had an amazing run together, winning 31 golds on tour and going a combined 155-6 together along the way. But, despite this amazing run of success, Anna Leigh Waters and Anna Bright together are even better together. The pair improved to 43-0 together as a team and won their 10th title by cruising through the draw without dropping a game and beating the No. 2 team Jorja Johnson & Rachel Rohrabacher 6,3,1 in the final. Not only are Waters & Bright undefeated in matches, they rarely drop a game. According to my eyeballing Picklewave's match database, the pair are 93-4 in GAMES as a partnership on tour, with all four of those games dropped occurring within their first couple of tournaments played together in the spring of 2023. Their dual spurned partners Rohrabacher & Parenteau have proven to be capable competition with a couple of finals runs together post break-up, but the next team to seriously challenge Waters & Bright's place atop the tour has not yet really presented itself. Hurricane Tyra Black has now medaled in 10 of the last 12 doubles events and sits ranked 5th by a fair margin to the rest of the tour (deservedly so) but can't seem to get past the hump of the two top teams right now with regular partner Parris Todd (the pair won their third straight Bronze medal in Bristol). It should be interesting to see how long this run lasts. Gold: Waters & Bright. Silver: Johnson & Rohrabacher. Bronze: Todd & Black. Senior Pro Competition Quick Recap 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 MLP playoffs start up next weekend in San Diego, then continue into the 8/24/25 weekend in NYC for the finals. The PPA has a couple of international events the rest of this month, then their next big event is the Cincinnati Cup in mid-September. Any Head to Head or career match stats quoted in this article are courtesy of PickleWave. Visit 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:
Mint
08-08-2025
- Health
- Mint
Why National Pickleball Day is celebrated on August 8? All you need to know
National Pickleball Day, marked every August 8, is a celebration of one of America's fastest-growing sports. Since its establishment in 2021, this day has become special for pickleball enthusiasts, highlighting the sport's accessibility and health benefits. National Pickleball Day was founded in 2021 by Deirdre 'Dee' Morris, a certified pickleball instructor and USA Pickleball ambassador based in Lafayette, California. Morris chose August 8, her birthday, to launch this annual event. Her goal was to promote the sport, encourage new players, and celebrate its inclusive nature. Notably, Pickleball began in 1965 on Bainbridge Island, Washington, when Joel Pritchard, Bill Bell, and Barney McCallum created a game to entertain their families. Using a perforated Wiffle ball, wooden paddles, and a badminton court, they crafted a sport blending tennis, badminton, and table tennis. August 8 honours this legacy while spotlighting pickleball's modern surge. The choice of August 8 is deeply personal, tied to Morris's birthday, symbolizing her commitment to growing the sport. This date has become a focal point for the pickleball community, with events like tournaments, free clinics, and social media campaigns. National Pickleball Day celebrates the sport's universal appeal. Played on a compact court, pickleball is easy to learn, low-impact, and suitable for all ages, from kids to seniors. The day promotes this inclusivity, encouraging people to try pickleball and join its vibrant community. The celebration also highlights pickleball's health benefits. A 2023 study showed that older adults playing pickleball experienced less stress and better mental health. For youth, the sport boosts mood and life satisfaction, while racket sports are linked to reduced dementia risk. August 8 serves as a platform to showcase these benefits, promoting wellness through play. August 8 fuels pickleball's global rise, with over 3.5 million players in the U.S. and growing popularity in countries like Australia and Asia. Professional leagues like the Professional Pickleball Association (PPA) and Major League Pickleball (MLP) draw crowds, and the sport's accessibility supports its Olympic potential. National Pickleball Day amplifies this momentum through community events and social media, inviting everyone to participate. On August 8, players and enthusiasts celebrate by hosting tournaments, joining clinics, or sharing their love for pickleball online. Whether you're a seasoned player or a beginner, National Pickleball Day is the perfect time to grab a paddle, hit the court, and connect with others.
Forbes
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Anna Leigh Waters Sweeps The Pro Pickleball Association Atlanta Championships
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 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 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:
Forbes
01-05-2025
- Sport
- Forbes
Andre Agassi Had A Mixed Pickleball Debut At the U.S. Open in Naples
NAPLES, FLORIDA - APRIL 30: Andre Agassi hits a backhand drive shot against Tristan Dussault and ... More Stevie Petropouleas during the 2025 US Open Pickleball Championships Pro Mixed Doubles round of 16 game at East Naples Community Park on April 30, 2025 in Naples, Florida. (Photo by) There's nothing a tennis crowd loves more than watching legends make a comeback. Roger Federer recently announced that he's eyeing exhibitions when ready to roll. Meanwhile, Andre Agassi has taken a left turning at 55 years of age to make a pro debut at the U.S. Open Pickleball Championships in Naples, Florida. Agassi teamed up with Anna Leigh Waters to win against two teenagers with a combined age of 29 in a tight match that went to three sets before losing in the evening session. They pack the matches in at pickleball. "Tennis was relief, pickleball is joy, this is absolute joy,' said Agassi after overcoming 13-year-old Stevie Petropouleas and 16-year-old Tristan Dussault. While The U.S. Open is the breaking news after Agassi's participation, it is not an established event on the Professional Pickleball Association (PPA) tour. Waters is the best player in the world for singles, doubles and mixed doubles with a gargantuan 174 PPA titles to her name. Agassi, who won eight tennis slams, joked to CNBC on signing to the partnership: "She's probably sick of winning so much, and that's why she called me and asked me to play.' The pair were among 3,500 participants from all 50 states and 40 countries competing in junior, amateur and pro divisions. The real 'Super Bowl' of pickleball is held in Dallas at the World Championships this November. The tournament greeted over 57,000 fans in the 2024 event and 2025 has seen ticket sales rise by almost a third in the first seven established events of the year on the PPA tour. Pickleball is currently enjoying its status as the fastest-growing sport in the United States for the fourth successive year. Agassi is one of several former tennis players who have taken up the game. Former ATP stars Jack Sock, Donald Young, John Isner and Sam Querrey are among those who have transitioned to the proper professional ranks of the sport. Former world No. 4 James Blake and five-time Slam champion Kim Clijsters are also co-owners of Major League Pickleball teams. Clijsters joined up with NFL Legend Tom Brady to invest in the Las Vegas Night Owls in 2022. When former legends appear with a pickleball paddle in their hands, does the dopamine hit go public? The answer is yes and no according to sports memorabilia veteran Brandon Steiner. 'If they want to create truly exciting exhibition games that capture public attention, they need high-profile contemporary celebrities that resonate with younger demographics,' said Steiner, who bought the Old Yankees Stadium to expand his collectibles empire. There have been three iterations of the Pickleball Slam which Agassi and his wife, 22-time singles slam winner Steffi Graf, have won. The Pickleball Slam 2 featured Agassi and Graf against John McEnroe and Maria Sharapova in front of a sold-out crowd of over 4,500 for a $1 million purse with a global ESPN audience. In February, a near sellout crowd of almost 12,000 saw the husband and wife team beat Eugenie Bouchard and Andy Roddick at the Michelob ULTRA Arena. Michelob even featured the sport in its 2025 Super Bowl commercial. The PPA signed up former 2014 Wimbledon ladies' finalist Bouchard in 2023. The Canadian has a huge Instagram following of over two million and it's this kind of public coverage that connects to the younger audience. 'While Agassi's involvement is a positive step, he remains largely unknown to Millennials and Gen Z who represent the future of sports viewership and participation,' said Steiner. Celebrity pickleball events are growing and the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, George Clooney, Bill Gates and even the Kardashians are playing the game. During last year's Wimbledon, Novak Djokovic even warned that tennis is endangered by its growth. 'If we don't do something about it, as I said, globally or collectively, padel, pickleball in [the] States, they're going to convert all the tennis clubs because……it's just more economical.' Last August, the United States Tennis Association declared that 10 per cent of tennis courts have been repurposed for pickleball. A standard tennis court could realistically accommodate up to four regulation-size pickleball courts. There are now around 70,000 courts in the United States with an increasing amount of leagues and media coverage. "The PPA has a partnership with the Tennis Channel on a 24/7 pickleball channel called "Pickleballtv" - which enjoyed more than 1 one billion minutes watched in 2024. We also have national broadcast windows on FOX, CBS, ESPN2 and more," said Jeff Watson, the VP of Communications for the United Pickleball Association, created after Major League Pickleball and the PPA merged last year. The average salary of a professional is approximately $260,000. FORT LAUDERDALE, FLORIDA - APRIL 24: Anna Leigh Waters of the United States poses for a portrait on ... More April 24, 2023 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The 16-year-old Waters is currently the No. 1 player in world in women's professional pickleball and competes in all three divisions: Women's Doubles, Mixed Doubles, and Singles. Waters, who started playing pickleball in 2017, became the youngest professional player and tournament champion at the age of 12. (Photo by) The power of pickleball has even got to Adidas which has increased its presence in the market with an aggressive re-entry into the market by signing number one seed in singles and doubles, Federico Staksrud at the beginning of 2025, releasing his signature range of paddles this April. As for future views, there are still hurdles to clear. Pickleball is so easy to access for young and old that it might be a barrier to watching sporting elitism in some ways. 'They have to make pickleball far more compelling for television viewership,' Steiner told me. "Right now, it's not exciting enough to watch - the small court dimensions and slower pace of play create a visual experience that lacks the dynamic athleticism viewers expect from premium sports entertainment.' Even so, some of the courtcraft and reflex volleys are astounding and can hypnotize more than a back of the court tennis rally. There are almost 20 million players out there in the States according to recent figures. "To me, tennis is always the king. But it's easy to play this. That's why my friends play with me all the time,' John McEnroe said of the phenomenon. Pro pickleball isn't such a cakewalk as Agassi just found out.
News18
27-04-2025
- Sport
- News18
Andre Agassi Set To Make Professional Pickleball Debut Alongside World No.1
Agassi added that he did not see him joining the growing ranks of pro pickleball players after the tournament, which takes place in Naples, Florida. 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 U.S. 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. Waters was on track to earn more than $3 million last year as a professional pickleball player, but did not have a mixed doubles partner for this year's U.S. Open, which begins on Saturday in Naples, Florida. That is where Agassi came into the picture, 'Andre's goals are to grow the sport of pickleball, and that's a huge goal of mine," Waters said. 'I thought if we partnered together, this would be a really awesome way to grow the sport." The tennis great, though, jokingly stated that she 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. First Published: April 27, 2025, 14:51 IST
