By Don Chareunsy
2024 Labor Day weekend wrapped up on Sept. 1 for the 2024 (and first-ever) Las Vegas Pickleball Cup with championship Sunday at Fontainebleau Las Vegas, and the big winner of the tournament was No. 1-ranked women’s player Anna Leigh Waters, who won three gold medals.
Waters, 17, was dominant in all three championships, winning women’s singles, women’s doubles with Catherine Parenteau and mixed doubles with Ben Johns. Waters, talented in the sport at such a young age, was jubilant and friendly in the VIP Lounge on Sunday after her victory with Parenteau, also in the VIP Lounge.
The other professional winners at Fontainebleau on the Las Vegas Strip: Sabriel Tardio and Andrei Daescu in men’s doubles and Federico Staksrud in men’s singles.
Congratulations to the tournament’s many other winners, including Las Vegas champions Bryce Giorgio, Justin Chock and Monique Richards (who won in mixed doubles with Giorgio and women’s doubles).
It also was great to see the fabulous Mikalah Gordon of Las Vegas, “American Idol” and Vegas Prime Magazine Celebrity Takeover guest columnist for Issue #9 there as an announcer.
I would absolutely attend the Las Vegas Pickleball Cup again if it returns for a second time to the Las Vegas Strip next year.
Fontainebleau kicked off the first-ever PPA Tour Las Vegas Pickleball Cup with a Charity Pickleball Tournament benefiting Discovery Children’s Museum on Aug. 27.
