Here’s how her mom helped hone her mental toughness

By Alexa Mikhail excerpted from Fortune WELL

When Anna Leigh Waters feels the pressure inching closer on the court and needs to climb out of the hole, she calls a meout and talks to herself. Taking a deep breath, analyzing her strategy, and focusing on her mindset centers her above all else, oen snapping her back into the game to make a comeback.

“When you’re in the hole, you have to stay posive because your opponent’s trying to beat you, and if you’re trying to beat yourself too, then that’s two against one,” the 16-year-old athlete tells Fortune. “Believe in your shots. Believe in your game and what you’ve done.”

Waters’ mental strength and compeve edge helped launch her to the top of her game she holds the number one tle in pickleball worldwide in singles, doubles, and mixed doubles. Waters turned professional in pickleball at age 12, becoming the youngest pro player in the sport. She quickly climbed up the ranks, having since racked up 10 triple crowns and six gold medals from the USA Pickleball Naonals.

She oen turns to her mom, an expert player herself in pickleball who le her lawyer job to coach and travel with her daughter, on the sidelines for a “tuneup session,” Waters says. “If I’m missing a couple shots, she’ll be like, ‘Anna Leigh, just be you,’” Waters says. “It really helps me a lot because I know what I can do and what I’ve done in the past, so if I remember those moments, or just remember me being me, it really helps me and gets me movated.”

‘Pressure is a privilege’

Keeping her eyes on the prize, and strengthening her confidence in a short amount of me, is no easy feat. Waters aributes her ability to crush self-doubt and stay posive in moments of high stress to her mother’s words of wisdom and the mental coach she has had on her side for the last year. The more mes Waters pracces talking kindly about herself, the more she has shown up on and off the court and been able to “tune -up” without the help of her coaches. She also reminds herself: “Pressure is a privilege.” That burning, heart racing feeling means she cares, and has already accomplished something worthwhile in the past.

Giving yourself grace is tough, Waters says, especially because the brain generates thousands of oen unhelpful and negave thoughts each day. But acvely switching gears has helped Waters succeed.

“Watching Anna Leigh compete, she’s feisty. She’s the animal. She’s an absolute beast on the court,” says Chrisan Alshon, a professional pickleballer who oen plays with Waters, in a previous Fortune video interview.

Waters, a natural athlete who grew up on the tennis court and soccer field, never expected to turn pickleball into a career. When her grandfather asked her and her mom to play pickleball aer evacuang their home in Florida due to Hurricane Irma in 2017, she gave the sport a go. Waters and her mom fell in love with the game and began playing together. “It was just something that we could do and could travel, and then all of a sudden, aer COVID, pickleball blew up,” she says. “I just kind of fell into the right spot at the right me, and I’m really grateful that I found the sport when I did.”

The duo soon aer competed in tournaments recognized for their savvy and aggressive playing style and won naonals in 2019. Waters credits her mom for giving the game a more fast -paced compeve edge, using harder-hing shots instead of soer ones. “We have this mother -daughter intuion where we know where the other one is going to be on the court,” Waters previously told Fortune.

The daily roune of the world’s number-one pickleball player

Waters typically begins her day in the morning with two hours of drill sessions with her mom or a local hing partner. Aer doing her school work, she heads back to the gym around 3 p.m. for another two hours with her trainer. She’s been traveling for tournaments every other week from Thursday to Sunday. In these instances, she will take Monday as a recovery day and return to the court by Tuesday.

The rise of the pickleballer

Waters’ dedicaon and love for the sport mirrors the slew of people trading in their tennis rackets for paddles over 36 million Americans played pickleball in

2022. Founded in 1965, pickleball combines the style of tennis, badminton, and ping pong and has become accessible across generaons and skill levels. It’s now America’s fastest-growing sport.

“As I get older, and as I grew up, I feel like the sport is doing the same thing,” she says, who has noced more people at local parks playing the game and has even observed newly installed pickleball courts replacing tennis courts overhead when she’s flying across the country. “The only good thing that came out of COVID was that people started to know what pickleball was,” Waters says. “It’s so addicng and people love it so much that they’ll go and tell all their friends about it and like try to really get them to try and they’re super inving and helpful.”

Much as pickleball serves the I-play-for-fun amateur, its place as a professional sport skyrocketed too. Pickleball professional leagues sprung up along with a pickleball dra last year CBS televised the game for the first me on a major broadcast network, which featured a match with Waters and her mom.

“Pickleball unassumingly fosters a childlike wonder in play and movement, while naturally highlighng the human need for community and fun,” says David Dutrieuille, the naonal pickleball director at Life Time. “It’s a sport that you accidently fall in love with.”

At Life Time, pickleball parcipaon has grown 300% over the last year. The fitness company hopes to have over 1,000 courts by the end of 2024, Dutrieuille says. The sport’s popularity among high-profile celebries like Bill and Melinda Gates and LeBron James has propelled the sport’s growth and goen the game to go mainstream.

Waters, who now has brand deals with Fila and Paddletek among others and earns a six-figure salary from winnings and endorsements, sees the sport’s benefits beyond her success on the court. She wants more people to see how pickleball can be for everyone with the bonus that it’s strengthened her ability to stay mentally tough amid stress. “Just get out there and try it once. I promise you’ll love it,” Waters says, whose goal is to play pickleball in the Olympics.