We got an interesting insight into the mind of Anna Leigh Waters, the number one female-ranked player in pickleball, recently when she spent some time at Gerald Ford Elementary in Indian Wells, California. Seventeen-year-old Waters and the team from FILA visited the school on Thursday, hosting a Q&A and a pickleball clinic with students.
Humble And Grounded
She played pickleball with some of the school staff, put students through training exercises, and was on hand to sign autographs and pose for selfies.
The athlete turned pro when she was only 12 years old and has enjoyed a meteoric rise to fame in the sport. According to the Paddletek website, she is the proud winner of 23 triple crowns, six U.S. gold medals, and 9 USAPA Nationals gold medals.
She remains humble and grounded in spite of her success, telling News Channel 3, “This sport, anyone can play – easy to learn, hard to master.”
Home Schooled After Third Grade
Anna has only been a pro pickleballer for seven years and was home-schooled for her elementary years.
“I was home-schooled after third grade so I can’t imagine, like, going to school and something like this happen. It’s really amazing”, she says. “I’m very thankful to the school, too, for allowing us to come in here and do something like this”.
Gerald Ford Elementary assistant principal Kerry Sperber said, “What an amazing event to have her here, making lasting memories for our students. We are just really grateful”.
It’s huge here at Gerald Ford to have somebody here to mentor our kids. Somebody actually went up to her and said, ‘I don’t actually watch pickleball, but you are a big mentor to me for always doing my personal best.’ So that’s awesome – fills our hearts.”
Anna also explained how she wishes to act as an inspiration to people on and off the courts: “I try on the court to be as professional as possible. I try not to let my emotions get the best of me. I know there are kids like this just watching me play pickleball, and they might see what I do and want to do that. If I’m doing the wrong thing, they might want to do the wrong thing, so I try to do the best I can and make the best decisions I can.”
Roger Federer
Elsewhere, another number-one-ranked racquet sports player was talking about pickleball. Roger Federer, winner of 20 majors in an amazing tennis career, was in San Francisco, recently named the city to host the 2025 edition of his brainchild event—the Laver Cup.
Following the announcement, the Swiss spoke to NBC and touched on our favorite sport.
He admitted that despite pickleball’s popularity, he has never tried it, although he had played Padel on a couple of occasions.
“I have never played pickleball, believe it or not. In Europe we have a lot of padel – I only played that twice. And pickleball, I’ve only seen it,” he told NBC.
Pickleball also came up when Federer was carrying out endorsement duties for the Clubhouse Pro Line footwear range.
In an Instagram post, Federer said, “This is the Roger Clubhouse Pro. The first time I held this shoe in my hand, I was very excited because you can play any racquet sport with it. Tennis, paddle, or dare I even say it, pickleball.”
Now that we know it’s on his radar, let’s hope we see him try it out relatively soon.
