Federico Staksrud grew up in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Like many other professional pickleball players, Staksrud has a tennis background— competing at multiple colleges including University of New Orleans and Tennessee Wesleyan. He also coached tennis and worked at a software company while earning his masters in Information Systems at Florida Gulf Coast University. He made the decision to switch to pickleball after having the opportunity to train with top players like Simone Jardim, CJ Klinger, Kyle Yates, Pablo Tellez, Brendon Long, and Ryan Sherry. When he’s not training, he enjoys watching all sorts of sports including F1 racing, tennis, and the NBA.