Everyone Relax: Anna Leigh Waters Spotted Testing Franklin Paddle, Nike Apparel

Ok, before everyone works themself into a tizzy, let's all take a beat.

Yes, a club in Boca Raton, Florida, posted a video today showing what was definitely Anna Leigh Waters swinging what certainly appeared to be a Franklin paddle wearing what was almost definitely a smattering of Nike apparel, including a particularly fly pair of Nike Zoom Challenge pickleball shoes in the "Topaz Gold/Blue Hero/White/Topaz Gold" colorway. Very nice.

The only real news here is that we now have a somewhat grainy picture of what ALW's pickleball future could look like. And it looks good.

And I emphasize "could" because her new deal is not yet finalized. We have that on very good authority.

And if the new, almost definitely multi-year paddle and apparel deals of pro pickleball's brightest young star were, in fact, ready to be announced, that definitely would not be coming at the hands of a random country club in Boca (no offense, though, your premises look lovely).

No. By all accounts, ALW is still in the testing phases and nothing has been finalized.

So let's all pause and appreciate this for what it is:

• Franklin and Nike are probably frontrunners at this point, given PPA Masters is coming up and it seems likely this announcement will happen before then
• The Polo Club of Boca Raton probably saw Anna Leigh Waters practicing with her doubles partner Anna Bright against two top APP pros – Tanner Tomassi and Richard Livornese Jr. – and thought, "This is awesome, we should post about it." And they were right, so they did, except it just so happened to be the worst timing in the history of presumably harmless social media posts
• The since-deleted post was first spotted by our pro writer Erik Tice, who posted it to X and began this whole firestorm – Erik was just doing his job; don't blame Erik

To recap:

• Is Anna Leigh Waters definitely signing with either Franklin or Nike? Nope.
• Does she look like a stone-cold badass rocking their gear, even in a grainy still-shot? She most certainly does.

Here's Zane Navratil giving his two cents: