The Pickleball Slam, Anna Leigh Waters and a sport trying to escape the gravity of tennis stars

Pickleball, one of the fastest-growing sports in the United States, has reached another milestone. The fourth edition of the Pickleball Slam, one of its most visible events, is not like the previous three. This time, for the first time, one of the four players on the court did not make their name as a tennis star.

“I think it’s huge,” said Anna Leigh Waters, the player in question, in a phone interview Saturday. “The Pickleball Slam is a big event. Pickle is in the name, so it’s kind of cool that we have finally, a legit, like, full-bred pickleball player.”

Waters, though only 19, is generally accepted to be the greatest player in the short history of the sport, alongside Ben Johns on the men’s circuit.

Waters has won 181 gold medals and 39 triple crowns — golds in singles, doubles and mixed at the same pickleball tournament — and is the PPA (Professional Pickleball Association) Tour world No. 1 for all three of those disciplines. In January, she became the first pickleball athlete to sign with Nike.

The Pickleball Slam, now in its fourth iteration, is broadcast live on ESPN and awards $1 million to the winning pair. With its hefty prize pot and ESPN deal, it is an event in search of eyeballs — which it has previously guaranteed by stocking its roster with tennis legends who have become pickleball converts, either on the sport’s professional circuit or as investors.

Grand Slam champions Andre Agassi, Steffi Graf, John McEnroe, Maria Sharapova, Michael Chang and Andy Roddick have all competed, but Waters is the first pickleball professional to take the court who has not hit a tennis ball for a living.

Waters will partner former WTA Tour world No. 5 Eugenie Bouchard, up against one-time ATP Tour world No. 4 James Blake and eight-time Grand Slam champion Agassi.

“It was honestly really cool to watch some of the ex-pro tennis players play pickleball and battle against each other in a different sport that’s similar to tennis, but obviously not the same,” Waters said of previous editions of the event.

“But I do think that adding a professional pickleball player into the mix hopefully makes it more entertaining, because you’ll see a little bit more nuance of the game than people who are really good at tennis playing pickleball.”

Jon Venison, a sports executive and co-creator of the Pickleball Slam at GSE Worldwide, which along with Horizon Sports & Experiences is producing the event, said via email that Waters’ involvement, alongside the three former tennis pros, is “a clear sign that the sport is now producing its own stars and continuing to evolve on its own terms.”

Tennis and pickleball have not always coexisted easily, but the evolution of the two sports — and the relevance of tennis players in events like the Pickleball Slam — suggests that any tensions are fading as the latter’s market matures.

While tennis clubs across the U.S. have converted tennis courts to pickleball courts, both sports have grown the past few years at the amateur level and tennis has remained well ahead of its sibling in the spectatorship stakes.

In February, the USTA announced that tennis participation in the United States had increased by 1.6 million in 2025 to a new high of 27.3 million total players, representing growth of 54 percent since 2019. Pickleball, meanwhile, continues to be one of the fastest-growing sports in the United States. An estimated 48.3 million adults dinked, hit and volleyed a small polymer ball over a 34-inch net between 2022 and 2023, according to the Association of Pickleball Professionals (APP).

Agassi, who partnered Waters at last year’s U.S. Open Pickleball Championships, is evangelical about the social and health benefits of pickleball, as well as honest about its friction with tennis.

“I believe pickleball and tennis have had their share of, let’s say, frustrations with each other or annoyances on some level, some form of competitiveness early on in the days of pickleball’s growth,” he said in a phone interview last month.

“But I think the growth is undeniable from a participation standpoint. And I think tennis players are a lot more secure in tennis being the Everest of racket sports. But they also understand that pickleball has its own place in community, so I think there’s less feeling of one or the other cannibalizing the other.”

Agassi has a number of pickleball investments and is a brand ambassador for Joola, a pickleball and table tennis company. He said of his ongoing involvement in the Pickleball Slam that: “I’ve been hit with weird offers over the years to play, whether it would be Serena (Williams) or whether it’d be to do things in tennis — and there’s nothing to understand or to try and prove. This isn’t that, this is to me a celebration of how far this sport has come and, and its overlap with tennis and generations and gender and in culture.”

Of the tensions between tennis and pickleball, Bouchard, who is also a Tennis Channel analyst, said during an interview at the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells that: “I’m Switzerland, I’m neutral.”

“I’m a tennis player at heart. I love the traditions of tennis and the history of our game. But at the same time, it is such a long learning curve to be good at tennis, right? The first lesson, you’re picking up balls the whole time. The first six months, you pick up balls. And if you don’t play against someone who’s very close to your level, it’s not fun for both players.

“There are stories of yes often people go from tennis to pickleball, but what if a kid starts in pickleball and goes over to tennis? I think it’s a big world and there’s room for everybody.”

Another eye-catching element of this year’s Pickleball Slam is the “Battle of the Sexes” element. It’s the first time that the sport is pitting women against men (excluding mixed doubles matches), with Waters against Blake, Bouchard taking on Agassi, and then Bouchard and Waters pairing up for doubles.

The doubles match will be the finale, following the two singles matches. The winner of each singles match will earn one point for their team, with the doubles carrying two points, in a format similar to tennis’ Laver Cup**,** which is designed to keep the jeopardy until the end.

The recent tennis “Battle of the Sexes” (named after the 1973 match featuring Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs) between world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka and former Wimbledon finalist Nick Kyrgios drew some criticism. One of the main issues observers had with the December match was the modifications made to the court, with Sabalenka’s half of the court 9 percent smaller — because of data, event organizers said, that showed that women players moved about 9 percent slower on average than men.

There will be no such modifications Wednesday, which those involved said was an important difference.

“You see the women going toe to toe with the men and having fast-hands battles (in mixed doubles), and winning points against men,” Waters said.

“Pickleball is one of those sports where women can hang (with men). I think Genie and I can definitely hang with Andre and James, whereas in other sports you know if a man and woman were to play against each other it might not be as entertaining.”

Agassi said he was more interested in the age differential (Waters, 19, and Bouchard, 32, will face his 55 years and Blake’s 46) and how big a difference in the “subtlety” of play there is from the pro pickleball pair compared to his and Blake’s skills.

“I know what to expect on the tennis court, where the edges are going to be and you’re really wrestling with the nuance of of how you need to execute,” he said.

“I don’t have that same depth of experience (with pickleball) so everything always feels new to me. With tennis, I spent, most of my career reminding myself that I’ve prepared my whole life for this. And I will not see something new that I can’t adjust to, but in pickle it feels like there’s still a lot that’s new. So it’s an adventure.”

Bouchard said that Agassi’s “backhand is insane in pickleball just the way it was in tennis,” and added that “it’s good for the sport to have someone so accomplished buy into it.”

It’s Waters, though, who is the headliner Wednesday: The teenager defining her sport, representing it by taking on former players from its more popular and illustrious rival.

“I do think it’s cool to add in maybe two pickleball players or three, but having all four would kind of change the dynamic of what the Pickleball Slam’s trying to do,” she said.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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