Zane Navratil thinks so. The Australian pickleball player, a seasoned professional on the PPA Tour and host of PicklePod - a podcast that discusses everything about pickleball - has drawn a comparison between the legendary American tennis player Serena Williams and the country's most sensational pickleball player, Anna Leigh Waters.

"Anna Leigh Waters is far more dominant than Serena Williams ever was. Obviously tennis is far more competitive, established, mainstream, etc. (for now) but ALW hasn’t lost a singles match in over a year and she wins mixed and women’s doubles 90+ per cent of the time," Navratil wrote on X.

Serena, with 39 Grand Slam titles, has redefined tennis with her aggressive style, brute power and supreme consistency. Her tally includes 23 women's singles Grand Slam titles - seven at Wimbledon and the Australian Open each, six at the US Open, and three at the French Open - making her the most successful player in the Open Era and second in history. Serena also dominated doubles alongside her sister Venus, clinching 14 titles. To add to her tally, she has two mixed doubles titles, making her the most consistent woman in the Open Era.

The former World No. 1 also holds an incredible record in WTA events, winning 73 of her 98 singles finals. In doubles, she lost only two finals and won 23. Serena also held the No. 1 rank for 319 weeks.

At the same time, 18-year-old Anna Leigh Waters has been widely regarded as pickleball's most successful woman. She has been the world’s number one-ranked professional pickleball player since she became the youngest pro in 2017.

Known for her aggression on the court, Waters has a style of hitting the serve with a forehand-like motion and shifting weight into the ball to generate power through body mechanics, aiming to disrupt opponents.

While she has a whole lot of career remaining, Waters has won 151 gold medals (titles) on the PPA Tour. As of June 2025, she is the No. 1 player across all three disciplines - doubles, mixed doubles, and singles - on the PPA Tour rankings. Remarkably, she has not lost a singles match for more than a year now.

She notably won a whopping 51 titles on the PPA Tour, making her the most successful singles player in PPA history, and she has 25 trebles (women's singles, women's doubles, and mixed doubles) to her name. She has also won 50 women's singles titles specifically. Additionally, she has won a total of 34 triple crowns, which includes winning women's singles, women's doubles, and mixed doubles at the same tournament.

However, Waters' unbeaten run in doubles came to an end on April 8, 2025, when she and her former women's doubles partner Catherine Parenteau lost the Veolia North Carolina Open final to Jorja Johnson and Tyra Black. In May, she won the US Open pickleball championship women's pro-doubles title alongside her mother Leigh Waters.

Still, despite Waters' magnificent feats, the comparison with Serena - an international tennis icon with exploits from different corners of the world - is uncalled for. For all her achievements, Anna Leigh Waters remains an American domestic player who has achieved all her feats on American soil. And PPA Tour and Major League Pickleball where she plies her trade are American pickleball tournaments.

While she has competed against the best of the world in all the competitions she has played and won so far, she is yet to taste the gruelling challenge of playing in overseas conditions that Serena did throughout her career - and not only did Serena win tournaments, but she also won the hearts of fans worldwide with her grace and resilience.

But one thing that everyone must agree on is that both Anna Leigh Waters and Serena Williams, with their gargantuan achievements, are the finest and greatest racquet sports players to have emerged from the United States.