PICKLEBALL PHENOM ANNA LEIGH WATERS BECAME THE FIRST ATHLETE FROM HER SPORT TO ATTEND THE ESPY AWARDS, MARKING WHAT SHE CALLED A“ SUPER COOL” MILESTONE.
Waters is the most decorated professional pickleball player in history. She is the current world No. 1 in singles, doubles, and mixed doubles; a 194-time medalist on the PPA Tour; and one of the sport’ s most powerful symbols of pay equity, having out-earned both male and female pros as pickleball’ s commercial era accelerates.
Waters has also made history this year by signing with Nike for apparel and footwear, a landmark deal that signaled pickleball had reached a new level of cultural legitimacy. She signed with Franklin as her paddle sponsor as well, anchoring her equipment identity with one of the most visible brands in the category.
Together, those partnerships form a rare résumé line for any 19-yearold athlete— let alone one competing in a sport still defining its place on the global stage.
It hasn’ t fully sunk in, she admits. But everything about her presence suggests she understands what that sentence means, not only for her career, but for pickleball itself.
Pickleball has moved quickly. New paddles, new tours, new money, new personalities. What’ s different now is recognition beyond the sport’ s bubble … pickleball now has a face recognizable away from the court.
So recognizable that in May 2025, Waters’ image appeared on a massive billboard in New York City’ s Times Square declaring her“ The Most Dominant Athlete in the World.”
“ I knew it was happening. But when I saw it in person, it’ s like a different level,” she recalls.
The moment that stayed with her wasn’ t the screen itself but the reaction from the crowd below.“ I was standing there, and people were putting two and two together,” she
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