Former tennis world No. 1 Andre Agassi’s pro pickleball debut at the US Open Pickleball Championships has come to an end, after he and partner Anna Leigh Waters fell in their second match to Len Yang and Trang Huynh-McClain.
Agassi – an eight-time grand slam singles champion on the tennis court – and Waters clinched a victory in their first match over Stevie Petropouleas and Tristan Dussault with a 11-8, 9-11, 11-7 win in the mixed pro division on Wednesday in Naples, Florida.
But the winning start, which marked the 55-year-old Agassi’s pro debut in the sport, was short-lived with the dynamic duo losing out in their next match to Yang and Huynh-McClain in three sets: 11-7, 4-11, 7-11.
Agassi had nothing but praise for Waters – the 18 year old No. 1-ranked player in the world – ahead of the tournament, saying: “She’s right up there with the greatest ever in what she does and the idea of challenging myself to not screw things up for her is daunting,” per Reuters.
Once relatively niche, pickleball – a mashup of tennis, table tennis and badminton that can be played indoors or outdoors, by single players or in pairs – now claims to be the United States’ fastest-growing sport.
An estimated 48.3 million adults played it at least once between 2022 and 2023, according to the Association of Pickleball Professionals (APP), which is nearly 19% of the total US population.
Agassi has been known to play the sport alongside his wife, 22-time grand slam singles title winner Steffi Graf.
“He’s so good,” she told CNN Sports earlier this year. “And he’s played a little more, he’s physically so much stronger and quicker (than me). His sense for this game, how quickly he picked it up, was absolutely phenomenal to watch.
“Not that I didn’t see it in the other sports that he’s so good at, but he picked it up and he loved the analysis of it, from the beginning on watching videos and other clips. When he goes out and plays with some of the professionals, he will have very specific questions that he needs answered to get better.”
Since discovering his love for pickleball, Agassi has become a vocal advocate of the sport. Promoting the game in India recently, he defended tennis as “the most difficult racket sport in the world” but lauded pickleball as a more accessible alternative.
“It’s going to grow like you can’t even imagine,” Agassi said, adding that he could “absolutely” see pickleball at the Olympics.
However, regardless of his aptitude for the sport, Agassi is unlikely to be pursuing full-time pro status anytime soon.
“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. I’m in a different season now,” he said, per Reuters.
CNN’s George Ramsay contributed reporting.
For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
