IT'S a hazy late morning in Kuala Lumpur, and I'm standing on the rooftop pickleball court at Balai Berita, face to face with a sporting phenomenon.
Not just any player, mind you, but Anna Leigh Waters, the American teenager who has taken professional pickleball by storm and sits atop the women's game.
There's something surreal about being this close to the world No. 1, especially when, moments later, I find myself attempting to "dink" with her while firing rapid-fire questions for NST Takes To Court, a special pickleball show brought by Sunday Vibes.
For the uninitiated, a dink is a soft shot played just over the net, designed to keep an opponent on their toes. It sounds simple enough until you're doing it opposite someone whose mastery of the game has made her the player everyone else is chasing.
At just 19, Waters is already more than a rising star. She turned professional at 12 and has since amassed an astonishing collection of titles. During the 2025–26 PPA Tour season, she won medals in all 46 events she entered, including 43 golds, and swept all 12 singles tournaments she contested.
She also holds the tour record for career Triple Crowns, awarded when a player wins singles, women's doubles and mixed doubles at the same tournament.
She's more than an exceptional player; she has become one of pickleball's defining faces, giving fans, sponsors and the media a champion around whom the sport can rally.
Meeting her makes me wonder: when will Malaysia produce a pickleball star of our own who can command that kind of attention?
Not simply someone who wins local tournaments or becomes a familiar face at the country's growing network of courts, but a player who can compete consistently against the world's best, attract an international following and inspire a generation of Malaysians to believe they, too, could reach those heights.
It's an ambitious question, but one worth asking while the sport is still growing and its future here is being shaped.
FULL COURTS TO CHAMPIONS
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Pickleball's appeal is easy to understand. Sociable and accessible to beginners, it offers exercise, competition and camaraderie, with friendships forged off the court often as rewarding as the game itself.
That broad participation is valuable, but packed courts don't automatically produce world-class athletes.
The journey from enthusiastic beginner to elite competitor demands structured training, quality coaching, regular competition, funding for travel and the resilience to persevere through setbacks. Just as crucial is identifying promising talent early and nurturing it over the years it takes to mature.
Malaysia isn't starting from zero. Domestic competitions, including the WPC Malaysia Series, provide opportunities for players to test themselves and pursue competitive rankings.
The PPA Asia 1000 Leapmotor KL Cup, held in September, of which Media Prima was the official media partner, also brought international professionals and Malaysian players together on home ground.
Interest is growing, the playing community is expanding and the foundations for further development are taking shape. The question is whether these can support a sustained pathway from grassroots participation to international excellence.
Who identifies emerging talent, provides the coaching and exposure needed to progress, and ensures financial constraints don't shut gifted players out? These are questions that deserve attention if Malaysia's pickleball ambitions are to extend beyond participation and tournament growth.
BEFORE THE SPOTLIGHT
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At the Leapmotor KL Cup, Media Prima Group managing director Datuk Mohd Rafiq Mat Razali spoke of the ambition to produce a world champion one day.
"With the right infrastructure and support, hopefully we can also produce a world champion one day," he said in an interview then.
It's an aspiration that captures the challenge: popularising a sport is one thing; building the system to produce a champion is another.
Waters offers a reminder of what can happen when exceptional talent meets the right opportunities. Her appeal isn't simply that she plays exceptionally well.
She has become a recognisable figure in a sport whose profile continues to rise, showing young players that a game they might have picked up for fun can lead somewhere extraordinary.
Malaysia knows the power of sporting icons. We've seen how our athletes can unite people across backgrounds, turn individual achievement into national pride and make the country's name resonate far beyond its borders.
But we should be careful not to confuse celebrating a champion with building one.
It's easy to join the excitement once an athlete has made it. The harder work begins much earlier, when a player has little public profile, limited sponsorship and no guarantee that years of sacrifice will pay off.
For pickleball, that means equipping coaches to nurture talent, giving young players meaningful competition and encouraging sponsors to invest in potential, not just proven marketability. It also means widening the talent pool so that ability, not access to facilities or family wealth, determines who gets the chance to progress.
None of this guarantees another player with Waters' profile. Sporting success can't be engineered, but a stronger development pathway would give more players the chance to discover just how far their talent could take them.
FROM POTENTIAL TO PODIUM
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There's nothing wrong with bringing international stars here. Their visits can raise a sport's profile, expose local players to a higher standard of play and make an otherwise distant ambition feel tangible.
But inspiration needs somewhere to go.
What happens when the crowd disperses and the cameras are packed away? Does the young player captivated by Waters have access to good coaching, a clear route to international competition and the financial means to pursue the sport long before it offers a living?
Sporting bodies, clubs, coaches, sponsors and the wider community must work together to nurture that potential. The media, too, must look beyond headline-making triumphs to tell the stories of athletes still striving to reach the top.
After all, by the time a player becomes a household name, much of the hard work has already been done.
Pickleball doesn't need to produce a superstar to justify its growth. Its value as a recreational sport is evident in the enjoyment, friendships and sense of community it creates.
But if we want to compete seriously on the international stage, that ambition must be matched by a commitment to developing talent.
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Imagine a Malaysian player stepping onto a court overseas to a crowd that knows his name, thereby inspiring young players back home to pick up a paddle and dream bigger.
That achievement would belong not only to the player, but also to the coaches, families, clubs, institutions and most importantly, the country that helped make it possible.
The hazy morning on the Balai Berita rooftop has given me a taste of what it feels like to be in the presence of a global sporting star. It's exciting, a little surreal, and a reminder of how far a sport can travel when it has a champion who captures the imagination.
The real measure of a sporting nation's ambition isn't how enthusiastically it welcomes the world's champions, but whether it's willing to nurture its own.
intanm@nst.com.my
© New Straits Times Press (M) Bhd