DUSTY BOYER HITS A FOREHAND DRIVE SHOT FROM THE BASELINE AFTER A SERVE FROM OPPONENT JAY DEVILLIERS DURING THE PRO MEN ' S SINGLES GOLD MEDAL MATCH.
Leigh had found her rhythm, and with it another trip to the finals where she and Anna Leigh were hoping to add to their treasure trove of medals.
“ I came in really nervous, and I was supertight,” Leigh said about the rough start, and intimated later in the event that this may be her last appearance at the US Open.“ And I just told Anna Leigh, hang with me. She’ s the best partner and daughter ever. She was able to pull me out of my hole. I did some breathing techniques to calm down and that really helped me.”
“ In that first game, we didn’ t play our best and we kind of got annihilated,” said Anna Leigh.“ So going into the second game, I really didn’ t know what was going to happen, but Mom stepped up. She played amazingly in the second game and gave me a lot of confidence.
“ You can’ t really focus on yourself if you’ re not trusting your partner— you’ re focused too much on what they’ re doing instead of what you’ re doing. So once you trust your partner, good things usually happen.”
Good things have also been happening with this tournament, located on the Paradise Coast in southwestern Florida.
While the sport of pickleball continues to grow throughout the country at a meteoric pace, Naples, Florida— and more specifically the East Naples Community Park— may be the epicenter.
With 60 dedicated courts and the sport’ s ultimate center court, the Franklin US Open celebrated the tournament’ s 10-year anniversary, further establishing records with a $ 200,000 purse, 3,750 players representing an astonishing 530 countries, and swelling crowds continually amazed at the level and quality of play.
Next up for the Waters team in their gold medal quest was the duo of Bobbi Oshiro of Plantation, Florida, and Miami’ s Katerina Stewart, another tennis transplant who played at Wimbledon in 2015. With Leigh clearly on her game now, and the unrelenting pursuit of excellence and steady play from Anna Leigh, mom and daughter won game one 11-5. After a quick 5-0 start to open game two by the Waters, Oshiro / Stewart tied it up
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MAY / JUNE 2026 | MAGAZINE 29