SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Pickleball is the fastest-growing sport in America. And in fact, this weekend, the Professional Pickleball Association holds an annual championship. This year's tournament's underway in Texas. Seventeen-year-old Anna Leigh Waters is the top-seeded women's player in all three divisions - singles, doubles and mixed doubles. And she's undefeated as she heads into the semifinals today. Anna Leigh Waters joins us now from just outside of Dallas. Champ, thanks for being with us.
ANNA LEIGH WATERS: Thanks for having me on.
SIMON: What makes you a pickleball player?
WATERS: That's a funny question because I became a pickleball player kind of by accident. I'm from Florida. I live in Florida with my family. But my grandparents live in Pennsylvania. So when Hurricane Irma hit Florida in 2017, we evacuated and went to be with my grandparents in Pennsylvania. My grandfather played pickleball, and he kept asking my mom and I to play. And we kept saying no 'cause we were tennis players, and we thought it was more of an older person sport. We were kind of like, no, no, no. And then he finally got us on the court, and we loved it from, like, the first time we played.
SIMON: Why?
WATERS: I just feel like because we did have that tennis background, we were kind of good at it from the start. But at the same time, it was a little different. We were playing it very aggressive. But actually, when we first started playing, the game was played a lot slower than it is now. So when we first started playing, everybody was like, oh, you need to play slower, like, hit softer shots. But we didn't really play like that, which is probably what made the game more fun to us in the beginning.
SIMON: Yeah. I mean, you're supposed to be - forgive me - a monster on court.
WATERS: I'll take that.
SIMON: And you mentioned your mother. Your mother's been your doubles partner, right?
WATERS: She was. When we first started playing tournaments, I was actually playing at the lowest level, and my mom started playing pro from, like, the first tournament, so she was very good. And then one day, her doubles partner decided not to come to an event, and she needed a replacement, so she asked me. We ended up getting, like, second in the tournament. And that was my first pro tournament ever, so she was like, all right, AL, I think you're ready to be my partner. So we started playing professional tournaments together. And we eventually became the number one team about a year later.
SIMON: Have you ever played your mother?
WATERS: So we've actually played singles against each other, too, which I don't think many people know. And one of the first tournaments, we played singles against each other - my mom was, like, coaching me on, like, timeouts. Like, I'd call a timeout, and she'd come over and, like, tell me what to do. It was, like, the weirdest situation.
But yeah, she was annihilating me when I first started playing her. But the first time I ever beat her was the funniest situation because I think I was like 12, and I beat her in a tournament, and she had no idea what to do. She didn't understand it. She thought - in her mind - she should still be beating me, you know, at that age. It was a really weird dynamic for a couple of days after that. But eventually, we figured it out.
SIMON: Why do you think pickleball is growing?
WATERS: Well, I think many different reasons. I like to say pickleball is like the only good thing that came out of COVID. Because a lot of families were, like, putting courts in their driveways. Even celebrities were putting courts in their houses. People didn't really have anything to do during COVID, and they could go out maybe to a local park with their family to get out of the house and do something.
I like to say pickleball is easy to learn, but difficult to master. So, like, amateurs love playing, and can play at their own level. And then you've also got the pro side of it. And I think people realized that, and then it just started taking off.
SIMON: I'm told you pickled somebody on Friday. I mean, what's that?
WATERS: So when you pickle someone, you beat them 11-0 in a game. And pickleball - when you're playing a tournament - you play 2 out of 3 games to 11. So what happened is I won one of my games 11-0.
SIMON: Anna Leigh Waters - the semifinals of the World Pickleball Championships take place today. The final's on Sunday. Good luck. Thanks for joining us.
WATERS: Thank you.
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