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Sunday Times-Interview in Miami (japanese restaurant)
November 8, 2002
November 8, 2002
I am standing by the
side of a tennis court listening to two men talking about Anna Kournikova.
This is not, I admit, that unusual. Men talk about Anna Kournikova all the
time. She is the No 1 downloaded athlete on the internet. She is the
default setting for sports columnists on not-much-happening days. She is (possibly)
the most photographed woman on the face of the planet. So two men talking
about her isn’t really news, except that the men are old enough to be her
grandfathers. And the tennis court is in Florida. And, oh yes, the lady in
question happens to be smashing balls across a net less than 30ft away.
"I like that," one says. "You like what?" his friend asks. "That little grunt she gives when she serves." "Yeah?" "The way she goes, 'Uhh'."
"Well, she's easier to listen to than (Monica) Seles, that's for sure."
"Yeah, Seles gives me a pain in the head."
"What did she make in endorsements last year?" "Anna? At least $10m."
"That much?" "Yeah, she's got the racket deal, the watches, the clothes — she has got to be the most attractive player ever on the women's tour."
"No, I can think of one other."
"Who?" "(Gabriela) Sabatini."
"Sabatini was nice, but she had a big nose."
"Yeah, that's true."
"This kid has it all: she's affable, attractive, and what a great sense of humour."
"Yeah, she is funny."
But this all happens later.
A FRIDAY evening in Miami Beach. She steps from a shiny red Porsche Carrera Turbo and crosses the road to a Japanese restaurant on Washington Avenue called Maiko that she frequents from time to time. "I'm Anna," she announces modestly, extending a hand. "Of course you are," I am tempted to reply, but settle for a meek "Pleased to meet you."
For two days, I had been deluding myself that interviewing Kournikova would be exactly the same as interviewing Nick Faldo. "You're a professional. Behave like a professional. Prepare in exactly the same way." But it didn't quite turn out like that. I didn't spend two hours with tears in my eyes and tweezers up my nose before meeting Faldo. I didn't waste a half-bottle of expensive scent on my armpits, or arrive for Faldo 30 minutes early wearing my best shirt and tie, and shoes you could see your reflection in.
Pathetic, isn't it? But I know Nick will forgive me. He knows how it is.
Anna, however, wasn't nearly as excited. I was hoping she would arrive in the racy outfit she once famously wore for a Women's Tennis Association awards ceremony. But men are from Mars and women are from Venus. She's wearing a black T-shirt, a set of training bottoms, an "Only the ball should bounce" Shock Absorber sports bra (though this, I concede, is mere conjecture) and has tied up her hair in a low-maintenance bun.
Clearly, for Anna, being both a woman and a true professional, an interview over dinner with a guy from The Sunday Times is no different from an interview over dinner with a girl from Reuters. We don't sing like Enrique Iglesias.
And so it proves. She bosses the opening exchanges and concedes nothing.
"So, one more?" I begin.
"One more what?" she yawns.
"One more interview."
"Yeah."
"Does it feel like that?" "No, I'm just a little tired after being in the sun all day."
"Okay, well, let's start with that: 'A day in the life of Anna Kournikova'. How does it begin?" "I woke up at eight and got out of bed."
"Where do you live?" "Here in Miami Beach."
"Who do you live with?" "I live alone."
"What's the first thing you did this morning when you got out of bed?" "I brushed my teeth," she laughs.
"Come on, take me step by step through the day?" "I brushed my teeth, got dressed, worked out from nine to 11 and had breakfast on my way to the tennis courts. I played for two hours, got back home, and did a phone interview for an exhibition I'm playing in Winnipeg in December. And then I came here to see you.”
"You are Russian?" "Yeah."
"You've never applied for citizenship here?" "No, no, no, no, no."
"How many languages do you speak?" "English and Russian."
"What language do you think in?" "Both."
"What language do you swear in?" "I try not to swear."
"What thoughts are occupying your mind at the moment?" "Food."
"Apart from food?" "At the moment, getting back into shape, getting ready for the year. I had an injury and wasn't really training hard for four weeks. I'm just starting to work harder right now." She raises her hand and impatiently beckons a waiter. "Can we order, please?" First set to Kournikova, six-love.
SERGEI studies the menu quietly by her side. Didn't I mention that our intimate dinner for two is in fact a ménage à trois? Sorry, that was careless, but it was a condition of the interview that we wouldn't discuss Enrique or any of the other reported romantic interests in her life. So I was afraid to ask who Sergei was. He looked too "ordinary" to be Sergei Fedorov, the Detroit Red Wings ice hockey star she has been dating on and off since the age of 16. And it definitely wasn't Mark Philippoussis, Nicolas Lapentti or Enrique Iglesias, whom she is also rumoured to have dated.
No, from the way she bossed Sergei around, I got the impression that he was a cousin or something, although, to be fair, he looked pretty besotted with her. We could both have left the restaurant unaware that the other had ever existed.
She orders the dragon rolls, two eel sushi, four salmon sushi, a salad with house dressing and a plate of white rice. I watch, making a mental note to press harder ("You are Russian! What sort of a bloody question is that!") as she squeezes a quarter of lemon into her Diet Coke. The interview with Garry Richardson from the BBC at Wimbledon comes to mind. OK, so the commentator's suggestion that Kournikova play at a lower level, minutes after she had been eliminated in the first round, was insensitive, but he had certainly rattled her cage. And isn't that what our business is all about these days? Making headlines? Causing a stir? Wham? Bam? Thank you, Ann?
"How do you feel about the way you are portrayed in the press?" I inquire. "It's always so different," she replies.
"Sometimes they like me, sometimes they don't, it’s always . . . I understand that I cannot be perfect for everybody, and that there are some people that won't like me or will like me, but I can't control that, really. All I can control is the way I play and the way I live my life. I try not to pay much attention to all that."
"You reacted quite angrily at Wimbledon to the suggestion that you're not up to it. Is it a frustration for you that people regard you more as a model and a pin-up girl than a tennis player?"
"No, I mean, hey . . . why should I be unhappy that some people think I'm pretty? Not that I think I am."
"No, you know you are, that's ridiculous."
"No, I mean it," she replies.
"Oh come on." "No," she insists, "there are a million things I would change about me."
"Okay, let's make a list. Just give me five?" "No, because then people will pay attention to that," she laughs. "And I don't want to bring attention to these things, but trust me, if I had a magic wand, there are some things I would change. But that interview was . . . people don't understand. I had just played a not-good match, a three-set loss, and five minutes later these questions come out of nowhere at a time when I wasn't even thinking straight. And even reporters have to try and . . . I mean, they are never going to understand, but they should try to have some . . . not sympathy but some kind of human . . . " "Empathy?" "Yeah. Five minutes after you lose the first round of Wimbledon, it's just . . . " "How hurtful is the perception that you are all style and no substance?"
"Hey, there is nothing I can do to change people's minds. If they want to see me that way, they will. Sometimes, when I do great, it's, 'Oh, after all she can play'. Or 'Finally she shows more than her looks'. I mean, please! I really don't pay much attention to that. I have a million other things to worry about."
"I can't believe it doesn't hurt you."
"You know what? I'm used to it. I've been in the spotlight since I was 10 years old. If I was to listen to every single thing, I would go crazy."
"When you missed Wimbledon in 2001, one of the English tabloids published a photo of you every day despite the fact that you weren’t there."
"Was that my doing? I can't help that."
"No, but I'm just wondering about this obsession and how you feel about it. I mean, you can't deny you're good-looking."
"No, I don't deny it."
"When did you first appreciate the value of that in your sport?" "I still don't appreciate it. I see girls every day and think, 'Oh my God, she's so beautiful'."
"So what have you got? What is it about you?" "I don’t know, you should ask that of other people, I really don't know. I'm being me, natural, real, and if some people choose to think that it's fake, then it's too bad for them. Nothing is orchestrated. Everybody says, 'Oh, she plans her image'. Or 'She does this to get attention'. PULL-LEES! I don't need attention. I wear this dress because I like it. If I wanted attention, I would do something way more . . ."
"But you enjoy the attention," I interrupt. "You enjoy the celebrity?" "I've never been without it."
"Of course you've been without it. You weren't doing cover shots for magazines when you were 12 years old."
"I was in The New York Times when I was 10 years old," she announces.
"Really?" "Yes, so that’s the point."
I've dropped another game. The match looks lost; time for one last desperate rally. "What's it like being a sexual icon? You've become that now."
"Oh great! I'm a person, you know. If some people see me like that . . ."
"How do you feel about it?" "It's very flattering, don't get me wrong."
"It is?" "Yeah, but it's not the most important thing to me personally."
"You don't find it difficult at times?" "Not really, people concentrate on that too much."
"When I mentioned to my friends that I was interviewing you this week, they were very impressed."
"Yeah," she laughs, "but you're not."
"Oh I am," I reply, "I'm just doing my best to disguise it. I'm just trying to get beyond all that, to get to the real Anna."
"This is me, eating like crazy," she smiles, swallowing a piece of salmon.
"What if I offered you a deal: you could be half as wealthy, half as good-looking and half as famous, but be twice as successful?" "I am successful."
"But twice as successful?" "I am successful! You know what? I'm going to be working hard and I'm going to get what I deserve."
"I've hit a nerve, haven't I?" "What do you mean?" "The suggestion that you can't play? Nothing irritates you more?" "Hey, I came from nowhere. I HAD NOTHING," she snaps. "And to get to where I am today, that's not bad."
Seventeen minutes of the interview have elapsed, and I have finally got a glimpse of the real Kournikova: "I came from nowhere. I had nothing." Of the 7,796 words we exchanged that evening, none came closer to explaining who she was.
"NOWHERE" was the grey, communist Soviet Union that she first opened her eyes to in June 1981. "Nothing" was the cramped, two-bedroom flat in Moscow she would call home for the next 10 years. Her father, Sergei, was a Graeco-Roman wrestler and a student of physical education at the University of Physical Culture (where he is now a professor). Her mother, Alla, from whom she inherited her looks, was a runner.
Anna doesn't remember much about life before tennis. She was an only child, her parents were young (they married at 18) and had to work, and she was raised mostly by her four grandparents, who still live in the capital. Winters were spent in Moscow; summers at a little house, 30 miles outside the city. "It's not like we were starving," she explains, "but we didn't have much, not compared to now."
At age five, her parents sold the television set and got her started playing tennis. "They never thought I would make money or play professional. It just seemed a nice sport to do for a girl. Swimming had too much chlorine. Gymnastics was too tough. They tried me at figure-skating, but I fell twice."
By the age of seven she was beating kids three years older, so they brought her to the Spartak Tennis Club, where she began working with Larisa Preobrazhenskaya, whom she still fondly regards as "my second mother".
Her first big break came at the Kremlin Cup in Moscow. "There was a group of guys from Spartak playing in the qualifying and I was there just hanging out, just watching, when one of them said, 'Let's hit a couple of balls'. So we started playing, and this guy called Poppy Vinti, a representative from Ellesse, a sporting clothes company, saw me playing and asked me on the spot to sign a contract. We couldn't really tell anybody. It was still the Soviet Union."
It was October 1990. She was nine years old.
The following January, her "covert" sponsors invited her to play at a junior tournament in Rome, where she was spotted by IMG, the International Management Group. A month later, accompanied by her mum, Kournikova left Moscow to begin a new life at the Nick Bolletierri tennis academy in Florida, a proven breeding ground for wannabe stars. Bolletierri ran his school with military discipline and didn't make many allowances for 10-year-olds. For the next five years her life was: wake up, practice, breakfast, school, lunch, practice, workout, swim, dinner, sleep.
"I was so skinny back then it was a joke," she recalls. "I was like a skeleton until the age of 15." But it was worth it. She loved the game, and knew she could play, and nothing else mattered but her quest to be the best.
For a spell, during her teenage years, she was. In 1995 she was the No 1-ranked junior in the world. The following spring, still only 14, she played for Russia in the Federation Cup and became the youngest player ever to win a match, in a 3-0 defeat of Sweden. In July 1997 she became the second woman in the Open era (Chris Evert in 1972 being the first) to reach the semi-final on her debut at Wimbledon, her favourite tournament. "I love the atmosphere at Wimbledon. I love the country."
"I love the electricity, the energy, the people, the Royals, the fans, the weirdness . . . the whole Wimbledon thing, you know, it's a little out there."
In the spring of 1998, Kournikova looked destined for greatness. At the Lipton Championships in Key Biscayne she defeated four top-10 players before losing to Venus Williams in the final. A few weeks later, she beat Martina Hingis, the world No 1, in the quarter-finals of the German Open.
Only two players in the Nineties had beaten Steffi Graf on grass. Kournikova joined the list at Eastbourne en route to the semi-finals. Wimbledon was approaching. She had entered the world's top 10. But in the defeat of Graf she fell and tore ligaments in her thumb. Forced to withdraw from Wimbledon, she hasn't been the same player since. Why? There are many opinions. Some say fame went to her head. That she spent too much time on the catwalk. Others that she just didn't have the artillery to compete with the power hitters in the game. Wimbledon '97 remains her best performance in a major. And though she has won two Grand Slam doubles events, and beaten the best players in the game, it still seems absurd that in the seven years since her professional debut, she has yet to win a singles tournament.
SHE orders another Diet Coke and some fresh fruit for dessert. We've reached the final set and she knows what's coming.
"What if I had suggested to you when you were the junior No 1 that you would never win a Wimbledon or any major tournament?"
"You can suggest it to me now," she replies, unperturbed.
"What are you going to say?" I ask.
"That I am going to work hard and we'll see what happens," she says. "Hey I'm 21! I'm only 21! I mean, Lindsay (Davenport) won her first grand slam when she was what — 22? 23? Something like that. Jennifer (Capriati) won when she was older. I think I am getting better. Everybody is so different. How can you judge?"
"I read somewhere recently that you take out the video of Wimbledon '97 and watch it sometimes. How does it feel when you watch it again?"
"It's just a tennis match. Look, I've had so many great points in my career, so many great matches, so many great wins . . . I've beaten five No 1s in the last 10 years! The only No 1s I haven't beaten are Venus and Serena (Williams). I've been to the final here (Key Biscayne) once, the semis of Wimbledon, and I've won a million doubles tournaments, so for me it's just a matter of putting it all together in one tournament, that's the whole thing."
"But you haven't been able to do that?"
"I've been very close."
"But you haven't done it?"
"I've been very close."
"How frustrating has that been?"
"You know what? I can be as frustrated as I want, but it won't change anything, so I'm not frustrated. I know that if I keep working hard, it will happen."
"It doesn't frustrate you?"
"No."
"It didn't frustrate you this year when you went out at Wimbledon?"
"That was just a bad match. It was a difficult time for me this summer, because I was going through a lot of things, but . . ."
"It doesn't frustrate you when people keep saying, 'She has never won a singles tournament'?"
"Oh great, good luck to them."
"No, but . . . " "It's just words."
"The question is how you feel about it," I press.
"How frustrating it must be for you."
"Like I said, I'm working hard. I know that I’m a great tennis player, and normal people that don't shut their eyes and are not mad at me or jealous or whatever, they know that I can play. I've proven it. I love the game and I enjoy it, and that's all. I'm going to be working hard, and some day it will happen. And if not, then I guess . . ."
"You guess what?" "It's not meant to be. But I am just being fatalistic here."
"You used the word 'great' — can you be a 'great' tennis player without ever having won a professional singles tournament?"
"Look, there are a million players in team sports, and they are the best player in their sport, and they have never won the championship . . . but obviously to be a great tennis player you need to win."
"So you're a good player then?"
"If making the top 10 is not great, then I'm sorry. And making the top 10 at 16!"
"Why haven't you been able to kick on? Why hasn't it come together for you in one tournament?"
"Sometimes I was unlucky, sometimes I was injured, sometimes I played the No 1 player in the world, sometimes I played a bad match, sometimes I was tired . . . it just didn't happen, that's it!"
"How many times have you asked yourself that question?"
"I don't ask myself."
"You don't?"
"No." Is this how it ends? Grinding her nose in the facts? Game set and match to the smart-ass hack? Maybe. Maybe not.
I am standing beside a tennis court in Florida listening to two men talking about Anna Kournikova. It's the morning after the interview, and a two-hour training session in stifling heat at the Jockey Club, a playground for the rich on Biscayne Boulevard, has just ended. She walks off the court to where the men are sitting, and as she picks up a towel to wipe the sweat from her brow, a mobile phone sounds.
Kournikova, though 21 now, has a teenage infatuation for mobiles (she carries three in her handbag) and a friendly argument ensues over the source of the ring tone. "It's the tune from The Lone Ranger," the men insist. "Trust me. It's the William Tell Overture," she counters. She drops her towel and plucks a phone from her bag. She presses Menu, Settings, Tone Settings, and scrolls down the list to "William Tell", beaming triumphantly when the tune is replicated. "Told you," she smiles. "Bah! You’'e just too young," the man concedes. "You don't remember The Lone Ranger." Too young? Not any more.
Twenty-one is middle-aged for a tennis player these days, but though the tide has started to turn on her career, her appetite for the game remains undiminished.
"The older I get, the more I enjoy it," she says. "When I was young, I was just playing. Now I love it even more. I understand it more. I appreciate it more." Absent for most of 2001 with a stress fracture to her foot, she has worked hard this year with a new coach, Harold Solomon, to get back to where she was. She is 35th in the rankings, but a place in the top 10 remains the immediate goal. Oh yes, and that all-elusive win. She would like to be remembered as the pin-up who could play, not the one who could not win. The men have picked up their rackets and are heading to an adjoining court. I escort Anna to her car and thank her for sharing so much time with me. "Not what you expected, huh?" she smiles. "No, not what I expected at all," I reply. And then she catches me off guard. "What did you expect?"
"Oh, I don't know. I suppose the woman I'd seen at Wimbledon during the summer. I thought you'd be moodier, more guarded and a lot more tired of it all. I expected a prima donna."
"You shouldn't believe what you read all the time," she laughs. "Sometimes I get the impression that people are unhappy with their own lives and it affects their writing. Why is everyone so bitter? People should lighten up, enjoy what they are doing, and thank God that they are healthy."
"You love life?"
"Not every day, trust me. I have bad days too, we all do, but at the end of the day I have a pretty good life. I mean, I could be working in a toll booth now, standing all day long picking 25 cents from people in cars . . . not that there is anything bad about that, don't get me wrong, I just appreciate what I have." "You wouldn't change anything?"
"That would be greedy. But if I wanted to be greedy . . . maybe there are a few things."
"Go on, be greedy."
"Naah."
She jumps into the Porsche, and as she turns the key and accelerates down the boulevard, I think I understand. What if you came from nowhere and had nothing? What if you discovered a talent that made you millions of dollars and a household name around the world? Would you wake up every morning with a grimace on your face, wondering, "What if?" Or would you open your eyes and and smile as she does: "Hey, that's not bad."
"I like that," one says. "You like what?" his friend asks. "That little grunt she gives when she serves." "Yeah?" "The way she goes, 'Uhh'."
"Well, she's easier to listen to than (Monica) Seles, that's for sure."
"Yeah, Seles gives me a pain in the head."
"What did she make in endorsements last year?" "Anna? At least $10m."
"That much?" "Yeah, she's got the racket deal, the watches, the clothes — she has got to be the most attractive player ever on the women's tour."
"No, I can think of one other."
"Who?" "(Gabriela) Sabatini."
"Sabatini was nice, but she had a big nose."
"Yeah, that's true."
"This kid has it all: she's affable, attractive, and what a great sense of humour."
"Yeah, she is funny."
But this all happens later.
A FRIDAY evening in Miami Beach. She steps from a shiny red Porsche Carrera Turbo and crosses the road to a Japanese restaurant on Washington Avenue called Maiko that she frequents from time to time. "I'm Anna," she announces modestly, extending a hand. "Of course you are," I am tempted to reply, but settle for a meek "Pleased to meet you."
For two days, I had been deluding myself that interviewing Kournikova would be exactly the same as interviewing Nick Faldo. "You're a professional. Behave like a professional. Prepare in exactly the same way." But it didn't quite turn out like that. I didn't spend two hours with tears in my eyes and tweezers up my nose before meeting Faldo. I didn't waste a half-bottle of expensive scent on my armpits, or arrive for Faldo 30 minutes early wearing my best shirt and tie, and shoes you could see your reflection in.
Pathetic, isn't it? But I know Nick will forgive me. He knows how it is.
Anna, however, wasn't nearly as excited. I was hoping she would arrive in the racy outfit she once famously wore for a Women's Tennis Association awards ceremony. But men are from Mars and women are from Venus. She's wearing a black T-shirt, a set of training bottoms, an "Only the ball should bounce" Shock Absorber sports bra (though this, I concede, is mere conjecture) and has tied up her hair in a low-maintenance bun.
Clearly, for Anna, being both a woman and a true professional, an interview over dinner with a guy from The Sunday Times is no different from an interview over dinner with a girl from Reuters. We don't sing like Enrique Iglesias.
And so it proves. She bosses the opening exchanges and concedes nothing.
"So, one more?" I begin.
"One more what?" she yawns.
"One more interview."
"Yeah."
"Does it feel like that?" "No, I'm just a little tired after being in the sun all day."
"Okay, well, let's start with that: 'A day in the life of Anna Kournikova'. How does it begin?" "I woke up at eight and got out of bed."
"Where do you live?" "Here in Miami Beach."
"Who do you live with?" "I live alone."
"What's the first thing you did this morning when you got out of bed?" "I brushed my teeth," she laughs.
"Come on, take me step by step through the day?" "I brushed my teeth, got dressed, worked out from nine to 11 and had breakfast on my way to the tennis courts. I played for two hours, got back home, and did a phone interview for an exhibition I'm playing in Winnipeg in December. And then I came here to see you.”
"You are Russian?" "Yeah."
"You've never applied for citizenship here?" "No, no, no, no, no."
"How many languages do you speak?" "English and Russian."
"What language do you think in?" "Both."
"What language do you swear in?" "I try not to swear."
"What thoughts are occupying your mind at the moment?" "Food."
"Apart from food?" "At the moment, getting back into shape, getting ready for the year. I had an injury and wasn't really training hard for four weeks. I'm just starting to work harder right now." She raises her hand and impatiently beckons a waiter. "Can we order, please?" First set to Kournikova, six-love.
SERGEI studies the menu quietly by her side. Didn't I mention that our intimate dinner for two is in fact a ménage à trois? Sorry, that was careless, but it was a condition of the interview that we wouldn't discuss Enrique or any of the other reported romantic interests in her life. So I was afraid to ask who Sergei was. He looked too "ordinary" to be Sergei Fedorov, the Detroit Red Wings ice hockey star she has been dating on and off since the age of 16. And it definitely wasn't Mark Philippoussis, Nicolas Lapentti or Enrique Iglesias, whom she is also rumoured to have dated.
No, from the way she bossed Sergei around, I got the impression that he was a cousin or something, although, to be fair, he looked pretty besotted with her. We could both have left the restaurant unaware that the other had ever existed.
She orders the dragon rolls, two eel sushi, four salmon sushi, a salad with house dressing and a plate of white rice. I watch, making a mental note to press harder ("You are Russian! What sort of a bloody question is that!") as she squeezes a quarter of lemon into her Diet Coke. The interview with Garry Richardson from the BBC at Wimbledon comes to mind. OK, so the commentator's suggestion that Kournikova play at a lower level, minutes after she had been eliminated in the first round, was insensitive, but he had certainly rattled her cage. And isn't that what our business is all about these days? Making headlines? Causing a stir? Wham? Bam? Thank you, Ann?
"How do you feel about the way you are portrayed in the press?" I inquire. "It's always so different," she replies.
"Sometimes they like me, sometimes they don't, it’s always . . . I understand that I cannot be perfect for everybody, and that there are some people that won't like me or will like me, but I can't control that, really. All I can control is the way I play and the way I live my life. I try not to pay much attention to all that."
"You reacted quite angrily at Wimbledon to the suggestion that you're not up to it. Is it a frustration for you that people regard you more as a model and a pin-up girl than a tennis player?"
"No, I mean, hey . . . why should I be unhappy that some people think I'm pretty? Not that I think I am."
"No, you know you are, that's ridiculous."
"No, I mean it," she replies.
"Oh come on." "No," she insists, "there are a million things I would change about me."
"Okay, let's make a list. Just give me five?" "No, because then people will pay attention to that," she laughs. "And I don't want to bring attention to these things, but trust me, if I had a magic wand, there are some things I would change. But that interview was . . . people don't understand. I had just played a not-good match, a three-set loss, and five minutes later these questions come out of nowhere at a time when I wasn't even thinking straight. And even reporters have to try and . . . I mean, they are never going to understand, but they should try to have some . . . not sympathy but some kind of human . . . " "Empathy?" "Yeah. Five minutes after you lose the first round of Wimbledon, it's just . . . " "How hurtful is the perception that you are all style and no substance?"
"Hey, there is nothing I can do to change people's minds. If they want to see me that way, they will. Sometimes, when I do great, it's, 'Oh, after all she can play'. Or 'Finally she shows more than her looks'. I mean, please! I really don't pay much attention to that. I have a million other things to worry about."
"I can't believe it doesn't hurt you."
"You know what? I'm used to it. I've been in the spotlight since I was 10 years old. If I was to listen to every single thing, I would go crazy."
"When you missed Wimbledon in 2001, one of the English tabloids published a photo of you every day despite the fact that you weren’t there."
"Was that my doing? I can't help that."
"No, but I'm just wondering about this obsession and how you feel about it. I mean, you can't deny you're good-looking."
"No, I don't deny it."
"When did you first appreciate the value of that in your sport?" "I still don't appreciate it. I see girls every day and think, 'Oh my God, she's so beautiful'."
"So what have you got? What is it about you?" "I don’t know, you should ask that of other people, I really don't know. I'm being me, natural, real, and if some people choose to think that it's fake, then it's too bad for them. Nothing is orchestrated. Everybody says, 'Oh, she plans her image'. Or 'She does this to get attention'. PULL-LEES! I don't need attention. I wear this dress because I like it. If I wanted attention, I would do something way more . . ."
"But you enjoy the attention," I interrupt. "You enjoy the celebrity?" "I've never been without it."
"Of course you've been without it. You weren't doing cover shots for magazines when you were 12 years old."
"I was in The New York Times when I was 10 years old," she announces.
"Really?" "Yes, so that’s the point."
I've dropped another game. The match looks lost; time for one last desperate rally. "What's it like being a sexual icon? You've become that now."
"Oh great! I'm a person, you know. If some people see me like that . . ."
"How do you feel about it?" "It's very flattering, don't get me wrong."
"It is?" "Yeah, but it's not the most important thing to me personally."
"You don't find it difficult at times?" "Not really, people concentrate on that too much."
"When I mentioned to my friends that I was interviewing you this week, they were very impressed."
"Yeah," she laughs, "but you're not."
"Oh I am," I reply, "I'm just doing my best to disguise it. I'm just trying to get beyond all that, to get to the real Anna."
"This is me, eating like crazy," she smiles, swallowing a piece of salmon.
"What if I offered you a deal: you could be half as wealthy, half as good-looking and half as famous, but be twice as successful?" "I am successful."
"But twice as successful?" "I am successful! You know what? I'm going to be working hard and I'm going to get what I deserve."
"I've hit a nerve, haven't I?" "What do you mean?" "The suggestion that you can't play? Nothing irritates you more?" "Hey, I came from nowhere. I HAD NOTHING," she snaps. "And to get to where I am today, that's not bad."
Seventeen minutes of the interview have elapsed, and I have finally got a glimpse of the real Kournikova: "I came from nowhere. I had nothing." Of the 7,796 words we exchanged that evening, none came closer to explaining who she was.
"NOWHERE" was the grey, communist Soviet Union that she first opened her eyes to in June 1981. "Nothing" was the cramped, two-bedroom flat in Moscow she would call home for the next 10 years. Her father, Sergei, was a Graeco-Roman wrestler and a student of physical education at the University of Physical Culture (where he is now a professor). Her mother, Alla, from whom she inherited her looks, was a runner.
Anna doesn't remember much about life before tennis. She was an only child, her parents were young (they married at 18) and had to work, and she was raised mostly by her four grandparents, who still live in the capital. Winters were spent in Moscow; summers at a little house, 30 miles outside the city. "It's not like we were starving," she explains, "but we didn't have much, not compared to now."
At age five, her parents sold the television set and got her started playing tennis. "They never thought I would make money or play professional. It just seemed a nice sport to do for a girl. Swimming had too much chlorine. Gymnastics was too tough. They tried me at figure-skating, but I fell twice."
By the age of seven she was beating kids three years older, so they brought her to the Spartak Tennis Club, where she began working with Larisa Preobrazhenskaya, whom she still fondly regards as "my second mother".
Her first big break came at the Kremlin Cup in Moscow. "There was a group of guys from Spartak playing in the qualifying and I was there just hanging out, just watching, when one of them said, 'Let's hit a couple of balls'. So we started playing, and this guy called Poppy Vinti, a representative from Ellesse, a sporting clothes company, saw me playing and asked me on the spot to sign a contract. We couldn't really tell anybody. It was still the Soviet Union."
It was October 1990. She was nine years old.
The following January, her "covert" sponsors invited her to play at a junior tournament in Rome, where she was spotted by IMG, the International Management Group. A month later, accompanied by her mum, Kournikova left Moscow to begin a new life at the Nick Bolletierri tennis academy in Florida, a proven breeding ground for wannabe stars. Bolletierri ran his school with military discipline and didn't make many allowances for 10-year-olds. For the next five years her life was: wake up, practice, breakfast, school, lunch, practice, workout, swim, dinner, sleep.
"I was so skinny back then it was a joke," she recalls. "I was like a skeleton until the age of 15." But it was worth it. She loved the game, and knew she could play, and nothing else mattered but her quest to be the best.
For a spell, during her teenage years, she was. In 1995 she was the No 1-ranked junior in the world. The following spring, still only 14, she played for Russia in the Federation Cup and became the youngest player ever to win a match, in a 3-0 defeat of Sweden. In July 1997 she became the second woman in the Open era (Chris Evert in 1972 being the first) to reach the semi-final on her debut at Wimbledon, her favourite tournament. "I love the atmosphere at Wimbledon. I love the country."
"I love the electricity, the energy, the people, the Royals, the fans, the weirdness . . . the whole Wimbledon thing, you know, it's a little out there."
In the spring of 1998, Kournikova looked destined for greatness. At the Lipton Championships in Key Biscayne she defeated four top-10 players before losing to Venus Williams in the final. A few weeks later, she beat Martina Hingis, the world No 1, in the quarter-finals of the German Open.
Only two players in the Nineties had beaten Steffi Graf on grass. Kournikova joined the list at Eastbourne en route to the semi-finals. Wimbledon was approaching. She had entered the world's top 10. But in the defeat of Graf she fell and tore ligaments in her thumb. Forced to withdraw from Wimbledon, she hasn't been the same player since. Why? There are many opinions. Some say fame went to her head. That she spent too much time on the catwalk. Others that she just didn't have the artillery to compete with the power hitters in the game. Wimbledon '97 remains her best performance in a major. And though she has won two Grand Slam doubles events, and beaten the best players in the game, it still seems absurd that in the seven years since her professional debut, she has yet to win a singles tournament.
SHE orders another Diet Coke and some fresh fruit for dessert. We've reached the final set and she knows what's coming.
"What if I had suggested to you when you were the junior No 1 that you would never win a Wimbledon or any major tournament?"
"You can suggest it to me now," she replies, unperturbed.
"What are you going to say?" I ask.
"That I am going to work hard and we'll see what happens," she says. "Hey I'm 21! I'm only 21! I mean, Lindsay (Davenport) won her first grand slam when she was what — 22? 23? Something like that. Jennifer (Capriati) won when she was older. I think I am getting better. Everybody is so different. How can you judge?"
"I read somewhere recently that you take out the video of Wimbledon '97 and watch it sometimes. How does it feel when you watch it again?"
"It's just a tennis match. Look, I've had so many great points in my career, so many great matches, so many great wins . . . I've beaten five No 1s in the last 10 years! The only No 1s I haven't beaten are Venus and Serena (Williams). I've been to the final here (Key Biscayne) once, the semis of Wimbledon, and I've won a million doubles tournaments, so for me it's just a matter of putting it all together in one tournament, that's the whole thing."
"But you haven't been able to do that?"
"I've been very close."
"But you haven't done it?"
"I've been very close."
"How frustrating has that been?"
"You know what? I can be as frustrated as I want, but it won't change anything, so I'm not frustrated. I know that if I keep working hard, it will happen."
"It doesn't frustrate you?"
"No."
"It didn't frustrate you this year when you went out at Wimbledon?"
"That was just a bad match. It was a difficult time for me this summer, because I was going through a lot of things, but . . ."
"It doesn't frustrate you when people keep saying, 'She has never won a singles tournament'?"
"Oh great, good luck to them."
"No, but . . . " "It's just words."
"The question is how you feel about it," I press.
"How frustrating it must be for you."
"Like I said, I'm working hard. I know that I’m a great tennis player, and normal people that don't shut their eyes and are not mad at me or jealous or whatever, they know that I can play. I've proven it. I love the game and I enjoy it, and that's all. I'm going to be working hard, and some day it will happen. And if not, then I guess . . ."
"You guess what?" "It's not meant to be. But I am just being fatalistic here."
"You used the word 'great' — can you be a 'great' tennis player without ever having won a professional singles tournament?"
"Look, there are a million players in team sports, and they are the best player in their sport, and they have never won the championship . . . but obviously to be a great tennis player you need to win."
"So you're a good player then?"
"If making the top 10 is not great, then I'm sorry. And making the top 10 at 16!"
"Why haven't you been able to kick on? Why hasn't it come together for you in one tournament?"
"Sometimes I was unlucky, sometimes I was injured, sometimes I played the No 1 player in the world, sometimes I played a bad match, sometimes I was tired . . . it just didn't happen, that's it!"
"How many times have you asked yourself that question?"
"I don't ask myself."
"You don't?"
"No." Is this how it ends? Grinding her nose in the facts? Game set and match to the smart-ass hack? Maybe. Maybe not.
I am standing beside a tennis court in Florida listening to two men talking about Anna Kournikova. It's the morning after the interview, and a two-hour training session in stifling heat at the Jockey Club, a playground for the rich on Biscayne Boulevard, has just ended. She walks off the court to where the men are sitting, and as she picks up a towel to wipe the sweat from her brow, a mobile phone sounds.
Kournikova, though 21 now, has a teenage infatuation for mobiles (she carries three in her handbag) and a friendly argument ensues over the source of the ring tone. "It's the tune from The Lone Ranger," the men insist. "Trust me. It's the William Tell Overture," she counters. She drops her towel and plucks a phone from her bag. She presses Menu, Settings, Tone Settings, and scrolls down the list to "William Tell", beaming triumphantly when the tune is replicated. "Told you," she smiles. "Bah! You’'e just too young," the man concedes. "You don't remember The Lone Ranger." Too young? Not any more.
Twenty-one is middle-aged for a tennis player these days, but though the tide has started to turn on her career, her appetite for the game remains undiminished.
"The older I get, the more I enjoy it," she says. "When I was young, I was just playing. Now I love it even more. I understand it more. I appreciate it more." Absent for most of 2001 with a stress fracture to her foot, she has worked hard this year with a new coach, Harold Solomon, to get back to where she was. She is 35th in the rankings, but a place in the top 10 remains the immediate goal. Oh yes, and that all-elusive win. She would like to be remembered as the pin-up who could play, not the one who could not win. The men have picked up their rackets and are heading to an adjoining court. I escort Anna to her car and thank her for sharing so much time with me. "Not what you expected, huh?" she smiles. "No, not what I expected at all," I reply. And then she catches me off guard. "What did you expect?"
"Oh, I don't know. I suppose the woman I'd seen at Wimbledon during the summer. I thought you'd be moodier, more guarded and a lot more tired of it all. I expected a prima donna."
"You shouldn't believe what you read all the time," she laughs. "Sometimes I get the impression that people are unhappy with their own lives and it affects their writing. Why is everyone so bitter? People should lighten up, enjoy what they are doing, and thank God that they are healthy."
"You love life?"
"Not every day, trust me. I have bad days too, we all do, but at the end of the day I have a pretty good life. I mean, I could be working in a toll booth now, standing all day long picking 25 cents from people in cars . . . not that there is anything bad about that, don't get me wrong, I just appreciate what I have." "You wouldn't change anything?"
"That would be greedy. But if I wanted to be greedy . . . maybe there are a few things."
"Go on, be greedy."
"Naah."
She jumps into the Porsche, and as she turns the key and accelerates down the boulevard, I think I understand. What if you came from nowhere and had nothing? What if you discovered a talent that made you millions of dollars and a household name around the world? Would you wake up every morning with a grimace on your face, wondering, "What if?" Or would you open your eyes and and smile as she does: "Hey, that's not bad."
The Anna Kournikova Forever Site 2000-2008
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If you find ANY copyright material on this website PLEASE contact me and I will remove it immediately. Thanx very much!