Anna Leigh Waters has spent the last week practicing her model pose — something that doesn’t come as naturally to her as, say, crushing opponents on the pickleball court, but still extremely fun.
Just over 24 hours after Waters sits down for this interview with Her Campus, she will go on to make history as the first pickleball player to ever walk the red carpet at the ESPYS, ESPN’s annual awards ceremony, which featured some of the biggest names in sports, including Simone Biles, Ilona Maher, and Saquon Barkley. “Not only is it going to shed light on me, but on pickleball, on our sport,” Waters tells me when we speak. “So I’m a little nervous, to be honest, but … I’m really excited to get dressed up, because everybody just sees me in my ponytail and my pickleball outfit on the court. Nobody really gets to see the other side of me.”
At only 18 years old, Waters is the best pickleball player in the world, ranking No. 1 in singles, doubles, and mixed doubles by the Professional Pickleball Association. She’s barely a legal adult, and yet she already has 148 gold medals… and a whopping 119,000 followers on Instagram, making her the face of the world’s new favorite sport. By posting match clips, ‘fit pics, and TikTok trends, Waters is fighting the stereotype that pickleball is merely a hobby for grandparents and retirees.
“[A common misconception I try to debunk is that pickleball] takes no skill,” Waters says. “It is a real sport. It does take athleticism. [But] it’s definitely getting better. Like, a lot more young people play pickle, or else it wouldn’t be getting as big as it is right now.”
Like any top athlete, Waters is constantly working in the gym, at physical therapy, and on the courts to stay in tip-top shape. This level of intensity is second nature for Waters; athletics have always been at the center of her world. “My whole life growing up, I always knew I would be doing something in sports,” she says. (In fact, according to The Kitchen Pickleball’s Instagram, if she weren’t in pickleball, she probably would have ended up on the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team.)
Despite her rigorous training schedule, Waters insists that chill days are just as integral to her success. “It’s not always, ‘the more I play, the better I play,’” she says. “Sometimes I play better when I take a little bit of a break, because we’re playing so many events, I need a mental reset.” Waters might be the best in the world, but off the courts, she’s also a down-to-earth teenager who loves to take days off to relax by shopping with her mom, zoning out on her phone, or getting dressed up to go to dinner.
But maintaining her mental health takes more than an occasional rest day. When I ask Waters what she has had to learn to learn to protect her well-being as a young woman in a high-performance world, she’s candid. “In the past, I’ve gotten a little too upset about some of the losses, because I obviously win a lot,” she says. “So the losses really hit home for me. I really, really don’t like it. I’m still working on this, but I think mentally losses make you better. You learn so much from them, a lot more than you learn when you win a match.”
Waters is also actively working to maintain her sense of self as her star continues to rise. “Pickleball’s exploding, and I want to stay grounded, to stay who I was five years ago. Hopefully I’ll still be that same person, but better, in a couple more years.”
Waters has big plans for the legacy she wants to leave. “On the court, [I want to be the] best, most dominant, pickleball player ever. That would be awesome,” she says. But her goals go beyond trophies. When she retires, she hopes to pass down the love for the game that changed her life. “I would love to be known as somebody who helped grow the game with kids or younger people,” she says. “I know what an outlet it was for me before I was playing professionally, so I know how much of an impact it could make on kids”
She’s already making progress on that front, spreading her zeal for pickleball all over the world through her social media. She’s actually amassed such a following that Google identifies Waters as an “internet personality” instead of an athlete. When I ask her how she feels about this fact, she’s surprised, but not offended. “I haven’t seen that. I guess I don’t look myself up on the internet,” Waters smiles and tells me. “I’m a little flattered that it said that, because it means I must be doing a pretty good job on social media — I’ve definitely been working on the content side because I know that’s a great way to build my brand.”
But at the heart of it, she knows who she is. “When I think of myself, and I hope when other people think of me, they think of me as a professional athlete.”