CNN
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Former Tennis World No. 1 Andrea Gassi’s propickle ball debut has concluded his debut in the US Open Pickle Ball Championship.
Agassi – eight-time Grand Slam Singles Champion on the tennis court – and Waters won their first match at Stevie Petro Lower and Tristan Dusaulto with 11-8, 9-11, 11-7 in the Mixed Pro Division in Napoli, Florida.
However, the victory began with the 55-year-old Agassi’s professional debut was 11-7, 4-11, 7-11 as the dynamic duo lost in three sets in the next match against Yang and Huyn McClain.
Agassi praised Waters, the world’s number one player, 18 years old, ahead of the tournament, saying, “She’s with the greatest person ever.
Once a relatively niche, pickleball (playable for tennis, table tennis, badminton mashups, indoor or outdoor, by single players) claims to be the fastest growing sport in the United States.
An estimated 48.3 million adults performed it at least once between 2022 and 2023, according to the Association of Pickleball Professionals (APP), which is almost 19% of the total population of the US population.
Agassi is known for playing sports alongside his wife’s 22-time Grand Slam single title winner, Steffi Graf.
“He’s very good,” she told CNN Sports earlier this year. “And he played a little more, he’s physically much stronger, faster (more than me).
“I didn’t see him as very good in any other sport, but he picked it up and loved the analysis by looking at the videos and other clips from the start.
Ever since discovering his love for pickleball, Agassi has become an advocate for the voice of sports. Recently promoting the game in India, he defended tennis as “the world’s most difficult racket sport”, but praised pickleball as a more accessible alternative.
“I’ll grow up to the point I can’t imagine,” Agassi said.
However, regardless of his aptitude for the sport, Agassi rarely pursues full-time pro status anytime soon.
“It’s a joy if you have the luxury of bandwidth to focus all your energy on just playing and body recovery and everything, but I don’t.
