Video edited to make robot appear to play professional pickleball

Context

In a video circulating on Facebook and TikTok, a robot is seen playing pickleball – a modern sport that combines elements of badminton, tennis, and table tennis – at the level of professional pickleball players.

The video, however, is fake. The robot has been digitally added, masking Anna Leigh Waters, a professional American women's pickleball player ranked number one worldwide by the Professional Pickleball Association.

In fact

The footage used for the video is of a Major League Pickleball women's semi-final played in Daytona Beach on March 26, 2023. In the match, the New Jersey 5's Anna Leigh Waters and Lea Jansen faced the California BLQK Bears' Andrea Koop and Maggie Brascia. 

However, in the clip circulating on social media, the 5's Anna Leigh Waters has been replaced by a robot. The edited exchange took place some 25 minutes into the match, starting with a serve by Waters. A side-by-side comparison of the viral clip with the official MLP coverage of the match can be found here.  

On X (formerly Twitter), the Major League Pickleball dubbed it the "best women's doubles game ever" and a "must-watch," and several other exchanges from the match have been shared on social media with great popularity, amassing millions of views. None of them, of course, showed a robot on the court.  

Several details in the robot's video indicate it has been edited. For one, the video is blurred around the outline of the robot. This is especially clear when the robot steps up to the net. Two seconds into the video, a sliver of what would be Water's skirt appears briefly, floating in the air by the robot's left leg before disappearing. 

Towards the end of the clip, the racket suddenly vanishes from the robot's hand before appearing once again, somewhat disfigured.

The verdict

The video has been edited to make a robot appear in place of the professional American women's pickleball player Anna Leigh Waters. The exchange occurred in a Major League Pickleball women's semi-final played in Daytona Beach on March 26, 2023. The official coverage of the match does not show a robot on the court. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.