Hi everyone and welcome to episode 164 of the Holding Court podcast. Today I'm joined by Anna Lee Waters,

the number one female pickleball player in the world. We'll talk about navigating success from such a young

age, what it was like when she got that call from Nike, and how she hopes to grow the game.

All coming up right now on Holding Court.

Boom, bum, bum, Wrigley Field this last summer when Justin was with the Cubs, and we both missed you. I told Justin to go out. You were doing the first pitch before the game, and I told him to go out and say hi, and I don't think he saw my text. So glad we're here today chatting. Yeah, they also made me sing the seventh inning stretch and I might be the worst singer that's ever been on the planet earth. So that was, when I knew I had to throw all the pitch, I was like excited, but a little nervous, you know, because as an athlete, you don't want to like totally fumble it. Yeah. But then when they told me I was singing the seventh inning stretch, I was not nervous for the pitch anymore. Let's just say that. I love that. I, first of all, you're not the worst because I sat through an entire season and you respected it too. I think there some people that, I won't say any names, but they mocked it a little bit. And I think in Chicago,

it's such a... you respected it too. I think there are some people that, I won't say any names, but they mocked it a

little bit. And I think in Chicago, it's such a tradition that even if you're not a good singer,

you just have to lean into it and go for it. But we're the opposite. So on Justin's Bobblehead

night, most of the wives do the first pitch. And I chose to sing the anthem. And I've never done a first pitch because I just think I would end up like the 50 cent one where he spikes it.

That's a whole ordeal.

So props to you for doing the first pitch because better than me.

That's for sure.

Take us back to how pickleball started for you uh obviously been a couple years now

but how did you get into playing the sport yeah it actually kind of happened by accident i was a tennis

player my mom played college tennis and i sometimes tennis players to this day still like to hate on pickleball

but at the time we were one of those people we were like this can't be an actual sport it's an

old person sport and we were living in florida at the time and hurricane irma came to florida in

2017 and we evacuated to where my grandparents live in Pennsylvania and my grandfather actually played

pickleball and he had been trying to convince us to play for a long time but we got pretty bored

we had been away from home for a while and we were itching for something to do so he finally convinced us

to go on play and the first time we played we were like addicted to it we you know we were like

oh we had been missing out this whole time like definitely not an old person sport like we love it

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