Miranda Cabieses was swinging racquets before she could spell the word "pickleball."
"I started playing tennis when I was like 3 years old," Cabieses said.
The Peruvian player is now competing in her fifth professional tournament, the U.S. Pickleball Open in Naples.
It's a moment that, at one point, she thought would never be possible.
"I got in an accident when I was 9 years old, so I dislocated my hip and I couldn't play sports at all," Cabieses said. "All the doctors told me to forget about tennis, forget about running. We don't even know if you're going to walk again."
After healing from the accident, Miranda didn't just walk again. She ran and she rallied.
"My brother called me and said, 'Why don't you come to the States? I'm playing pickleball and I'm traveling,'" Cabieses said. "I'm like, what's that? I don't even know what that is?"
While attending FGCU, Cabieses picked up a paddle and never looked back. She's now a world pickleball ambassador. Not only does she love competing in the sport, but she loves teaching it, too.
"People would say, 'Oh, she's from Peru. Pickleball is in Peru,'" Cabieses said. "But I was like, pickleball is not in Peru."
Miranda and her brother, Hercilio, started the Cabieses Foundation, which helps kids in Peru learn how to play pickleball.
"To see that I can give back to these kids and community...it feels good in my heart," Cabieses said.
The Cabieses Foundation has donated around five thousand pickleball paddles and supplies to kids across Peru.
As Cabieses graduates from FGCU this May, she hopes to teach others what she proved to herself: anything is possible.
"I was a kid who couldn't walk," Cabieses said. "And now I'm here sharing the love. Sharing the pickleball love."
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