Andre Agassi raves about pickleball after making pro debut in sport: 'I'm loving it'

Andre Agassi is backmost connected the court, conscionable a smaller one.

The eight-time Grand Slam victor made his nonrecreational pickleball debut past period astatine the U.S. Open Pickleball Championships, teaming up with 18-year-old Anna Leigh Waters, the top-ranked pistillate subordinate successful the world, successful a mixed tournament.

He won his archetypal lucifer earlier dropping his second, but aft participating casually implicit the years, he's hooked.

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Andre Agassi makes his pickleball debut arsenic helium competes with Anna Leigh Waters successful a Minto U.S. Open Pickleball Championships mixed pro doubles lucifer astatine East Naples Community Park successful Naples, Fla., connected April 30, 2025. (Jonah Hinebaugh/Naples Daily News/USA Today Network via Imagn Images)

"Dude, I'm not conscionable liking it, I'm loving it. … It's an anomaly to spot immoderate enactment ever astatine this benignant of pace, but it's casual to spot why," Agassi said successful a caller interrogation with Fox News Digital. "My household was looking for things to do, and watching however similar bring radical together, generations together, however it breaks taste barriers, breaks down sex barriers, breaks down generational barriers, low-point of entry, nobody's intimated to effort it, it's challenging astatine each level. Tell maine erstwhile to stop, for crying retired loud."

Agassi caught upwind of "Dreambreaker: A Pickleball Story," a Netflix documentary directed by Ashley Underwood, Larry David's wife. She, too, has caught the pickleball fever, which mightiness marque for an astonishing "Curb Your Enthusiasm" episode.

Andre Agassi and Anna Leigh Waters observe during crippled 1 of a Minto U.S. Open Pickleball Championships mixed pro doubles lucifer  in Naples, Fla., connected April 30, 2025. (Jonah Hinebaugh/Naples Daily News/USA Today Network via Imagn Images)

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"I played pickleball, my hubby and I played. We had a amusive radical during COVID. That's really erstwhile I got started," Underwood told Fox News Digital. "I was a tennis subordinate before, and idiosyncratic asked maine to travel play pickleball, and I fell successful emotion with the sport. I went to a large league pickleball tourney successful November 2021, and I couldn't judge what I saw successful the pro game. They're conscionable playing similar a wholly antithetic athletics astir than recreational players. Just existent athletes, unthinkable to see, and honestly, I saw that this was the commencement of a nonrecreational sport. So I wanted to chronicle a unsocial infinitesimal successful time."

Despite his tennis success, though, determination are a batch of nooks and crannies that Agassi inactive needs to get utilized to.

"It's truly hard. These guys are truthful specialized, it's truthful sensitive, specified small borderline for error," Agassi said. "There's truthful overmuch nuance that creates opportunity. It's not similar ‘see space, deed space.’ There was a batch I had to unlearn, but immoderate things came instinctively. I grew up with a racket successful my hand, and successful this lawsuit it's a paddle, truthful I'm going to marque bully contact. But the humor pressure, it's hard to find a spot to enactment it erstwhile you're retired determination connected the pickle court."

Andre Agassi makes his pickleball debut connected April 30, 2025. (Jonah Hinebaugh/Naples Daily News/USA Today Network via Imagn Images)

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A study recovered that determination were astir 20 cardinal participants successful 2024, a 311% summation from 2011.

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