Anna Leigh Waters called the MLP title the one trophy missing from her collection. Here is exactly why she won it this year and what made the New Jersey Fives different.
If you have been watching Anna Leigh Waters dominate professional pickleball for the last few years, you already know she wins almost everything she enters.
But the Anna Leigh Waters MLP title was the one she could not get across the line, until now.
What changed in 2026? It was not just talent. It was roster construction, mental approach, and a team-wide willingness to put ego aside when it mattered most.
This breakdown comes straight from a sit-down interview with The Dink's PicklePod podcast on YouTube, where Anna Leigh went deep on the championship run, the Federico Staksrud trade, what actually drives her competitive obsession, and what she is working on next.
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Why the MLP Title Hits Different Than Everything Else
Anna Leigh has 193 career titles. She put this MLP championship in her personal top 10, and the reasoning tells you a lot about what makes team formats so brutal to win.
In singles or doubles on the PPA, your result is almost entirely in your own hands. MLP is completely different.
You can go 3-1 in the Dreambreaker personally and still lose the whole event if your team does not show up around you.
That dependency is exactly what makes the title so hard to collect. You cannot manufacture it alone no matter how good you are.
That is a concept worth sitting with if you play any kind of team or partner format at your local level.
For more context on how the MLP Finals unfolded this year, check out these 5 lessons from the championship weekend.
What Actually Got the Fives Over the Hump?
The New Jersey Fives had been in this exact spot before. They reached the finals in 2024 and came up short, and in 2025 the same scenario played out again.
Anna Leigh described the mental weight of watching that situation emerge a third time: "Is this happening again?"
She said the team got tighter in a tough moment instead of looser.
The key shift in the Dreambreaker this year was pure intent. Here is what she told the team going into it:
- Stop waiting for the St. Louis Shock to deflate on their own. They will not.
- Do not play nervous or timid. The match only goes to whoever takes it.
- Reframe the moment. If you knew going in you would be in a Dreambreaker to win the title, you would be excited. So be excited.
- Forget the scoreboard. Focus only on winning the next point in front of you.
That mental reset is something every competitive player needs under pressure. These 3 rules for stopping the choke in tight points apply directly here.
Did the Federico Staksrud Trade Actually Win the Championship?
Federico Staksrud replaced Zane Navratil roughly six weeks before the finals. It was a controversial move that generated real pushback from pundits and fans.
Anna Leigh was direct: she does not know if the Fives win that title without Federico.
His singles ability is elite.
She ranked him top three in the world in that format, and winning Dreambreakers without a singles weapon at that level is a much harder task.
But the trade also required Will and NoWay to shift roles, playing only in their best events rather than competing across the full lineup. That sounds simple. It is not.
To understand exactly how that roster move came together, read the full breakdown of what the Federico Staksrud trade meant for the Fives.
Erik Tice
How Do You Ask Elite Players to Accept a Reduced Role?
This is the real leadership question. You have players who are fully capable of competing in both events. You tell them they are only playing one.
How does that conversation go?
Anna Leigh's answer is worth breaking down into specific pieces:
- Make it about team performance, not individual ability. Adding Federico was an upgrade to the team, not a statement that Will or NoWay could not handle the full load.
- Point to track record. The Fives reached the finals the year before without Federico, which proved those players were capable. Nobody was being doubted.
- Frame it as a strength assignment. Each player was being placed in their most confident event, which actually gave them a better chance to succeed individually.
- Ask for team-first thinking. Ego had to be set aside. That is hard. But the players did it.
The result speaks for itself. The Fives won the championship without needing a third match in the finals.
The Dink Media Team
What Drives Anna Leigh Waters When She Already Has Everything?
This is the part of the interview that is most useful if you are serious about your own development, regardless of level.
After winning the title, Anna Leigh was not thinking about celebrations.
She was sitting there upset about losing her mixed doubles match earlier in the event. Up two games to zero, she did not close it out.
That bothered her even while holding the team trophy.
She described her process this way: any match that is close, any point that should have been better, she is replaying it and looking for the fix.
That is not a phase she goes through. It is constant.
She used the word "obsessive." That is accurate. And she connected it directly to improvement rather than results. She is not asking herself how to win more titles.
She is asking what she needs to add to her game to deserve more titles.
That distinction matters. This pro analysis breaks down what makes Anna Leigh's game so hard to attack, and a lot of it traces back to exactly this mindset.
Erik Tice
What Is She Actually Working on Right Now?
Anna Leigh identified two specific areas she wants to sharpen. Neither of them is a headline weakness. That is exactly the point.
- First: being more aggressive out of the air. She wants to step to the line and flick after a strong backhand roll, and right now she does not hit that shot consistently. She knows where it could go in her game, and the gap between where it is and where it could be frustrates her.
- Second: movement and anticipation. She talked about reading where her shot is likely to be returned based on what she hit. If she can get to that spot faster, she creates more opportunities. That is a court awareness skill most recreational players never develop consciously.
She also admitted her serve is average by her standards.
The power is there, but the depth is inconsistent, and she has been cycling through technique adjustments chasing a consistent deep and heavy serve.
If you want to work on the same issue she is describing, these 3 serve mistakes that kill power and depth are a good starting point.
For the flick she is developing off the air, this tip position fix adds real snap to the pickleball flick.
The Dink Media Team
Can You Be the Greatest Without an MLP Title?
Before this win, Anna Leigh might have said yes. Now she says no, with some important caveats.
MLP has enough variables outside any player's control that judging someone purely on whether they have a title is complicated.
Roster construction, team ownership spending, format rules, and the Dreambreaker all create scenarios where the best individual player does not necessarily win.
She compared it directly to basketball, where even LeBron James is only one of five players on the court.
In MLP, a player might be on the court for less than half the total points played in a match.
The analogy that came up in the interview was Messi and the World Cup.
For years, the argument was that Messi could not be the greatest without winning it. He eventually did.
The question is whether team format results should define individual greatness when so much depends on what surrounds you.
For a look at what the MLP Finals setup looked like heading in, here is the Fives vs. Shock showdown preview.
Thomas Shields
The Question Mark Paddle: What Is Coming from Franklin?
Anna Leigh has been playing with a Franklin paddle featuring a question mark design. It is not a gimmick.
She confirmed she and Franklin have been working on something new since partnering in January, and she plans to debut it at the North Carolina event.
She even showed up to the interview with a question mark on her nails.
If you want to stay ahead of what is coming, here is everything we know about Anna Leigh's mysterious new paddle.
And if you want to win the limited edition Fives paddle, there is a giveaway running right now for the ALW Fives Franklin paddle.
Alex E. Weaver
What the Fives Win Teaches Every Competitive Player
Here is the bottom line from everything Anna Leigh said in this interview.
Winning at the highest level is not just about your own game.
It is about reading the situation, adjusting your mindset under pressure, asking teammates to do something uncomfortable, and staying focused on what you can control when everything else feels out of your hands.
The Dreambreaker mindset she described, specifically reframing pressure as opportunity rather than threat, is something you can apply in your very next tournament match or even your next rec game when the score gets close.
For more on how the Fives built toward this moment all season, here is the full recap of the New Jersey Fives taking home the 2026 MLP Championship.
And if you want to borrow from the same mental framework Anna Leigh used in the Dreambreaker, these 8 pickleball mindset shifts are built around the same principles.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many career titles does Anna Leigh Waters have?
Anna Leigh Waters has 193 career titles as of the 2026 MLP Championship. She ranked this MLP title in her personal top 10 most exciting wins because of how difficult the team format is to control.
Why did the New Jersey Fives trade for Federico Staksrud?
The Fives added Federico Staksrud because of his elite singles ability, ranking him top three in the world in that format. The trade allowed the team to assign every player to their strongest event rather than spreading the lineup thin across multiple formats.
What is the Dreambreaker in MLP?
The Dreambreaker is a singles tiebreaker format used in Major League Pickleball when a match is tied. Each team's players rotate through singles points in a predetermined order, and the first team to reach a set number wins. It places enormous weight on individual singles skill under team pressure.
What is Anna Leigh Waters working on to improve her game?
Anna Leigh identified two specific areas: stepping to the kitchen line to flick after a strong backhand roll, and improving movement anticipation based on shot prediction. She also said her serve lacks consistent depth despite solid pace.
Can a player be considered the greatest without winning an MLP title?
Anna Leigh's post-championship answer is no, though she acknowledged MLP has enough variables outside any player's control that the question is genuinely complicated. Roster spending, format rules, and team composition all affect results in ways that individual skill cannot fully overcome.
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