Andre Agassi is now racking up wins in pickleball too! The eight-time Grand Slam champion, who retired from professional tennis in 2006, seems to have found a second wind in a similar-feeling-but-different sport: pickleball! A day after he turned 55 years old, Agassi joined hands with an 18-year-old partner, Anna Leigh Waters, to claim a win in the mixed pro division at the US Open Pickleball Championships on Wednesday.
Agassi and Leigh Waters defeated a pair of even younger teens 11-8, 9-11, 11-7.
Leigh Waters is the top-ranked player in the world in women’s singles. According to Forbes, Waters earned more than $3 million playing pickleball in 2024. The report called her pickleball’s “biggest and most marketable star”.
A report on CNBC’s website, stated that the partnership had come about after Leigh Waters’ suggestion, which Agassi accepted.
“She’s probably sick of winning so much, and that’s why she called me and asked me to play,” Agassi joked.
“We both tend to err on the aggressive side, and I think that works,” Leigh Waters was quoted as saying in the article. “Andre’s goals are to grow the sport of pickleball, and that’s a huge goal of mine. I thought if we partnered together, this would be a really awesome way to grow the sport.”
Founded in 2016, the US Open Pickleball Championships has drawn crowds as large as 50,000 fans each year. USA reportedly has 13 million players playing the sport that is a mix of tennis and ping pong but uses paddles and a wiffleball.
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Agassi was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame five years after retiring.
He has become one of the most prominent tennis players to be associated with the pickleball, besides players like Eugenie Bouchard. Agassi had previously participated in made-for-TV pickleball exhibitions. He has also promoted pickleball equipment from his social media handles.
While his career in his new sport gathers momentum, Agassi has not lost touch with tennis: he will be a studio analyst for TNT Sports in the final two rounds of the French Open this year. He won the title at Roland Garros in 1999 to complete a career Grand Slam.
Agassi has also said that he was unlikely to play in Major League Pickleball or the PPA Tour.
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“If I had the luxury of bandwidth to focus all my energy on just playing and body recovery and all that stuff, that would be a joy. But I don’t,” he told CNBC. “I’m in a different season now.”
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