The big news in the pickleball world recently was that Federico Staksrud took over the top spot in doubles from Ben (or Collin) Johns. The news was based on the PPA points ranking, which to an extent rewards quantity as well as quality. The more events you play in, the more points you accumulate.

 

But, it leads to an interesting question: who is the best player? Let’s address it by talking about the top five. We will start on the women’s side. Next column will talk about the men.

 

At #1 is, of course, Anna Leigh Waters. The thing about ALW that is so amazing is that she is basically the best at everything. On the men’s side, if you talked about who has the best serve, the best serve return, the best forehand, the best backhand, the best dinks, the best speedups, etc., you would have many different names listed. But, on the women’s side, if you do the same thing, you basically just come up with ALW’s name for almost everything. She has the best serve return, she has the best forehand drive, she has the best backhand, she is the best dinker, she has the best speedup, she has the best counter, etc. Indeed, it is actually easier to list the shots she is NOT the best at; it is a shorter list. She does not have the best serve and she does not have the best overhead. Other than that, I think she is the best women’s player at everything else. That is how dominating she is right now.

 

 

At #2, I will go with Anna Bright. Bright would be tied with ALW for the most competitive fire on the women’s side. Like ALW, Bright has a very complete game. Indeed, she might be second best at just about everything. She is a very good left side player. She can play both sides, but I would like to see her stick 100% on the left when she plays with Rachel Rohrabacher. She is very athletic and I like her ability to poach and cover the court from that left side. Although she doesn’t play many singles events, she is actually pretty good at singles. We see that in MLP Dreambreakers.

 

 

At #3, I have Jorja Johnson. Johnson has made a lot of progress in the last year. We see that in her results. In mixed doubles, she and brother JW Johnson have been near the top for the last year. Although they have not broken through against ALW/Ben Johns, they have come very close. Jorja and JW Johnson did win MLP with the Dallas Flash, and had a great MLP mixed record. Jorja has also experienced more and more success in women’s doubles, focusing on playing the right side. She has developed a very tricky backhand speedup that is hard to read. Her right side dinking has been solid, even though she uses a non-traditional cut forehand. At 18 years old, she has room to improve even more.

 

 

The #4 player is Catherine Parenteau. She experienced a little bit of a drop late in 2024, but is off to a hot start in 2025. She played very well at The Masters. At The Masters, Parenteau and ALW defeated their rivals Anna Bright and Rachel Rohrabacher. In that rivalry, it had looked like Bright/Rohrabcher were catching up. Bright/Rohrabacher had employed a strategy in recent matches of relentlessly attacking Parenteau. They had some success with that strategy. Parenteau made some adjustments, and counterattacked more at The Masters. That appeared to be successful to an extent. It will be interesting to watch the chess match in strategy in what has become the best rivalry in pickleball.

 

 

Finally, at #5, I have Rachel Rohrabacher. I see a bit of a gap between 4 and 5. Rohrabacher has improved a lot over the last year, and plays very solidly with Bright.  She has lagged a little bit behind the top four in mixed doubles. She played a lot in 2024 with Federico Staksrud but just did not have quite the results that might be expected. Rohrabacher has a very long stroke to her forehand, which can be an issue. She tends to have some issues with it in key points in matches, causing her to tighten up her stroke and leave the ball in the net. It also makes her shots a little easier to read. She does favor her backhand, but in mixed and playing the right side with Bright, Rohrabacher gets a lot of forehands to the outside, so she needs to improve her forehand crosscourt roll and develop a little better speedup. All in all, a very good player who is still improving.

 

 

In the “close, but not top 5” are players like Tina Pisnik, Tyra Black, and Kate Fahey. Black, in particular, has started off 2025 very well. It will be interesting to see how these players progress in 2025. Can anyone challenge ALW in singles? Will Bright/Rorhabacher knock off ALW/CP? Will the Johnsons break through against ALW/Ben in mixed? Lots of interesting story lines for 2025. I know I will be watching it all.

 

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