Anna Leigh Waters

Anna Leigh Waters (born January 26, 2007) is an American professional pickleball player. As of March 2025, she had won 148 gold medals and was ranked No. 1 in the world for doubles, mixed doubles, and singles by the Professional Pickleball Association.^[1] She was the youngest professional pickleball player in history at age 12, and is known for playing doubles on a team with her mother.^[2]

Anna Leigh Waters

Country (sports)	United States
Residence	Delray Beach, Florida, U.S.
Born	(2007-01-26) January 26, 2007 (age 18)
Height	5 ft 6 in (1.68 m)
Turned pro	2019
Plays	Right-handed

Early life

Born in Allentown, Pennsylvania, in 2007, Waters moved to Clinton, North Carolina, and lived there with her family until she was eight years old. In 2015 they relocated to Delray Beach, Florida, where Waters was a competitive soccer player.

Pickleball career

Waters began playing pickleball during a visit to her grandparents in Allentown, Pennsylvania, in 2017. She played in her first tournament several months later and, at 10 years old, won a gold medal in Women’s Doubles. By 2019, at age 12, Waters became the youngest professional pickleball player in history.^[3] Since then Waters has won over one hundred tournaments in doubles, mixed doubles, and singles.^[4]

Waters's coach and occasional doubles partner is her mother, Leigh Waters, a former NCAA Division I tennis player at the University of South Carolina.^[5] They are the only mother-daughter team in professional pickleball.^[6] In 2022, Waters and her mother were in the first nationally televised pickleball match in history on CBS Sports, at the Skechers Invitational Summer Championship in Los Angeles.^[4] Waters has also played exhibition style games with many pro athletes including swimmer Michael Phelps, actor Jamie Foxx, boxer Sugar Ray Leonard, golfers Scottie Scheffler, Jordan Spieth,^[3] and football players Larry Fitzgerald and Danny Wuerffel.

Waters is said to play with an aggressive style, characterized by strength and speed.^[7] She is sponsored by sportswear manufacturer Fila^[3] and Paddletek.^[8]