Anna Leigh Waters will try to add a Pickleball Slam title to her already impressive collection.PPA The fourth installment of the Pickleball Slam event is set for Wednesday, April 15th, 2026 at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Florida. This year’s event returns Andre Agassi for the fourth year in a row, putting his 3-0 record on the line alongside first-time participant James Blake, and they’re facing off against two active Professional Pickleball Association pros in Anna Leigh Waters and Genie Bouchard.This year’s event, for the first time, is featuring a “pickleball-only” star in Anna Leigh Waters and will feature a “Battle of the Sexes” where the men will face off against the women.

The format of the competition will feature three rally scoring games as follows:Match 1: Singles: James Blake vs. Anna Leigh WatersMatch 2: Singles: Andre Agassi vs. Genie BouchardMatch 3: Doubles: Agassi/Blake vs Waters/BouchardI caught up with the event’s founders, the participants, and their coach to talk about the event history and the strategies the players are using in order to take the $1M winner-take-all prize ahead of the event.

Here’s a history of the event and a deep-dive into the strategies the players are implementing to take home the prize.The Slam field is setPickleball Slam The Pickleball Slam is a partnership between two entities; Horizon Sports & Entertainment and GSE Worldwide. It is a great example of how two companies can come together and combine their expertise (HSE’s sports broadcasting and GSE’s athlete roster) to create a successful event.The concept was inspired by the success of golf’s “The Match,” which debuted in 2018 and featured the two biggest names in golf (Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson) playing a winner-take-all, made-for-TV match.

The first event’s broadcast partner was Turner Sports (part of the Turner Broadcasting network), led at the time by President David Levy. Levy is a legend in the industry, having recently been inducted into the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame, and after a long career with Turner he took over Horizon Sports & Entertainment (HSE) in mid-2022. Soon after, he had an idea.

As Jon Venison (President of GSE Productions) tells the story, "This event came about when Dave [Levy] called me five years ago to talk about how we could put something together that would be an iconic event inwhat was the fastest growing sport in the USA: Pickleball. We thought we could put something together that was a real TV property and that could really help a sport in that nascent stage. In 2021, there was lots of grass roots development in the pickleball, but not a lot of national or international brand awareness."Using Levy’s experience from The Match, the pair brought together a combination of a big prize purse, a “sexy venue" in the Seminole Hard Rock Casino, a big network broadcasting the event (ESPN), and a big-time sports production crew to create this event.

Says Levy, “We wanted to emulate ‘The Match’ but in pickleball, adding big brand names, putting in a real competition. Plus, it had to be authentic; if it’s not real, then players aren’t going to take it seriously, and the fans, consumers, and viewers aren’t going to be engaged."This is a salient point, one worth expanding on. Professional tennis is well known for its “Hit and Giggle” events, where pros play exhibition events at 30% speed for fun and laughs.

We’ve seen videos go viral recently showing good friends Novak Djokovic & Aryna Sabalenka laughing as they play a mixed exhibition together before the 2024 Australian Open. These are certainly fun events and make for good TikTok shorts, but this is specifically not what the creators were aiming for. The lure of the fun exhibition featuring pros going at 20% for laughs is what most pros, even in pickleball, are used to, but even the wealthiest Pickleball pros are still motivated by a big prize figure.

Says Venison about these exhibitions in comparison to the Pickleball Slam events: "We think there’s short term success with these types of fun exhibitions, but not longer term. All our players are motivated, but if its just celebrity exhibition, we don’t have the same energy. We found that the flat fee deals were good for players, but less exciting for fans and brands.

So we structured the prize money so it was real competition.”The first Pickleball Slam in 2023 featured four tennis Hall of Famers, basically four of the most recognizable names in American tennis. Venison was in business with Jim Courier (at InsightOut) for decades prior to being acquired by GSE, and maintains relationships with a host of top tennis players at his agency. Says Levy, “Jon’s relationship to tennis was good synergy.

Thus at the starting point in 2023, we went with tennis players, famous names at first. The tagline was, ‘the biggest names in racquet sports ... in the biggest growing racquet sport’ ... that was the vision.”The success of the Slam was immediate: it sold out its first i