Tennis legend Andre Agassi, an eight-time Grand Slam champion, is set to trade his tennis racket for a pickleball paddle.
Agassi will be competing in the mixed pro division at the US Open Pickleball Championships next week in Naples, Florida, partnering with teenage pickleball star Anna Leigh Waters.
Aged just 18, Anna Leigh Waters is known across the sport as the greatest women’s player of all time with 148 Professional Pickleball Association (PPA) titles, or golds.
This marks a notable shift for the 55-year-old Agassi, who retired from professional tennis in 2006 after his final match at the US Open in Flushing Meadows – the same venue where he claimed two of his Grand Slam titles in 1994 and 1999.
While the American tennis legend has participated in televised pickleball exhibitions and promoted pickleball equipment online, this will be his first foray into professional pickleball competition.
Agassi’s illustrious tennis career includes winning all four Grand Slam tournaments, achieving a Career Grand Slam, and culminating in his induction into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2011. Agassi has also coached tennis legend Novak Djokovic and Bulgarian player Grigor Dimitrov.
He will also be contributing to tennis broadcasting as a studio analyst for TNT Sports during the French Open semifinals and finals this year. Now, he adds another chapter to his sporting journey, stepping onto the pickleball court for a new challenge.
Pickleball is a mix of tennis and ping pong that uses paddles and a wiffleball. It quickly rose from nearly nothing to more than 13 million players in the United States in just a few years.
The sport is believed to be the fastest-growing in the United States, where celebrities like Super Bowl-winning Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, tennis pro Naomi Osaka and actor Eva Longoria are among the myriad celebrity investors in professional Major League Pickleball.
Agassi previously played pwith Michael Chang, Andy Roddick and John McEnroe in the first live airing of Pickleball on ESPN in the Million dollar Pickleball Slam at the Hard Rock Casino in April 2023.
