At one point, Anna Kournikova was ranked as high as No. 8 in the world, making her one of the best tennis players of all time.
The Russian star never won a singles title, though. Anna had to quit her job when she was 22 because she was hurt. Still, she kept getting advertising and endorsement deals, and she quickly became one of the most “Googled” people in the world.
After she stopped playing tennis, Kournikova became a big star through modelling, TV shows, and other projects. Entertainment media were also interested in her marriage to Enrique Iglesias. These days, the couple is more relaxed and spends time with their kids.
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What does Anna Kournikova do today? What does the 42-year-old look like? That’s all you need to know about her!
Lots of young people want to be famous and well-known in a certain area. To sum up, the most important things to do to be great are to work hard, believe in yourself, and be dedicated. This is true whether you want to be a Hollywood star, an opera star, or a Broadway dancer and performer.
That’s also true in sports, where young, talented players fight hard to make it.
Even though the path to fame is known to be hard, it’s important to keep in mind that the higher you go, the longer you have to fall.
That was the case for Anna Kournikova, who was once thought to be one of the best young tennis players in the world. People in the know thought she would become the next big thing in the sport. However, her career stopped almost before it began, even though she turned pro at a very young age.
Anna got into the sport when it was mostly done by men, and fans, sponsors, and even reporters all wanted to talk about her. In some ways, she turned into a product instead of a person, and her good looks took centre stage instead of her clear skills.
There were some problems with the Russian’s job ending when and where she had planned, but she still built an empire and a beautiful family.
Her birthday is June 7, 1981, and she was born in Moscow. When she was five, she started playing tennis with her friends. Soon after, she started going to a Moscow tennis club every week.
“My parents pushed me to do better because I liked the sport and played it well.” “Two years later, I started taking lessons at a professional tennis club where many of the current Russian tennis players got their start,” Kournikova wrote in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Extraordinary Teens: Personal Stories and Advice from Today’s Most Inspiring Youth.
Early life of Anna Kournikova and her move to the US
“Yes, tennis did become my life, my outlet, my group of friends, and my community very quickly.” “My coach was like a second mother to me,” she said.
“I trained for tennis and played tennis all the time.” I knew, even though I was only a child, that I didn’t have many other choices. Before, it was hard to get ahead in Russia because there weren’t as many chances as there are now in the US.
A lot of people knew that Kournikova was a huge talent. Coaches, her parents, and managers and talented coaches on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean all saw how talented she was.
Author Robert H. Ruxin says in his book An Athlete’s Guide to Agents that agents were interested in Anna Kournikova before she was a teenager. IMG Tennis, a global tennis management business, saw Anna right away and set out to get her.
IMG found Anna when she was ten years old dragging old tennis balls across the court in Moscow. They thought she would become one of their biggest stars. IMG put Anna and her mother in its Lord Tennis Academy and helped her become a millionaire by the time she was 13. She had never played in a professional event before.
The people in charge saw that Anna Kournikova was more than just a tennis player at that age. She was famous for both how good she was at tennis and how good she looked. Even though she was young, IMG is said to have thought her looks were very important.
“Scary and gross”
Author Ben Rothenburg of the New York Times said that Anna was famous for both her looks and her skills when she was only 10.
“People at IMG talked about her before her results came out, even when she was a junior. It’s creepy and gross, but it still happens: ‘Oh my God, you should see this 12-year-old, she’s beautiful,'” Rothenburg said on the No Challenges Remaining show.
“She turned out to be what people thought she was.”
Kournikova went to Florida and began playing tennis at the famous Nick Bollettieri’s school. Soon after, she started playing in events for kids, and no one came close to beating her.
Kournikova turned pro in 1995, when she was 14 years old.
“Most people don’t start playing professionally until they are fourteen years old in a lot of sports,” she said. “But in tennis, you start training hard at a very young age.”
“From what I remember, it wasn’t even a matter of going pro or not.” I was trained for this chance for so many years that I never even thought about questioning it. I was eager and hungry to show myself on the WTA tour… I was very happy to move up to the next level because I had won everything I could on the Junior Circuit.
Phil Shutterstock Anthony Kournikova won the biggest international youth event the first year she played as a professional.
Tennis history of Anna Kournikova
And the next year, she made it to the fourth round of her first US Open. When she was 16, she made it to the semi-finals of the famous Wimbledon competition. She played tennis for about 35 weeks a year, all together.
At the same time, though, Anna and her team of managers and brokers had important things to do outside of school. Tennis for women was growing quickly, and marketing companies wanted to get big people to work for them. They put a lot of money into the sport.
As the internet spread around the world, it became easier for marketers to reach people all over the world. Anna was Russian, spoke perfect English, and played tennis all over the world. From a brand’s point of view, she was a dream.
Anna was the first huge female tennis star to start making money from her career. Several weekly sports magazines put her on the cover, and she was the face of everything from watches to sports bras. When she was 18, she was already what many people would call a “sex symbol” because she posed in knickers and small shirts.
Someone who is Googled a lot
Many people felt bad about this, but Anna was making a lot of money. Even though she was selling her image to a lot of different companies, other players, like the famous Martina Navratilova, stood by the Russian star.
“How should she say, ‘No, I don’t want your money?'” You wouldn’t win the prize and then say, “No, I don’t really deserve it.” said about Kournikova at one point.
Anna was going up into the sky. In 1999 and 2002, she won the Wimbledon doubles title with Martina Hingis. From a business point of view, things couldn’t have been better. She was also one of the most Googled people in the world in 2002.
She didn’t play on the WTA Tour again until 2003. Sadly, she had to quit because of injuries when she was 22 years old. She played in more practice matches and World Team Tennis after that, but her chance to become one of the all-time greats of the sport was taken away.
Kournikova liked playing tennis, but there was a part of her that was glad she was done.
“You know, the fame and everything, I guess most of it was made by you guys, by the media a lot of the time, mostly the yellow press,” Kournikova said the night she called it quits.
A look at Anna Kournikova’s family, husband, kids, and wealth
“I didn’t try to pay attention.” As you might expect, it was pretty hard to deal with reading some kind of crap about yourself when you were 16 or 17. A lot of it was made up.
We can all agree that Anna’s career ended too soon, but she went on to be great in other areas. The Russian woman built a business worth more than $50 million. She is now happily married and has three children.
She said, “I think it was cool.”
“I worked really hard on it.” My family and I felt very good about it, and it was also fun. I got to chew gum, drink soda, and go on trips all over the world. Because I lived in America and ate fruit all year, I was nine years old. That wasn’t here at home. When I was 14, I had been to most places.
What did she do after she stopped playing tennis? Kournikova worked as a model for a short time and continued to be in a lot of commercials. Even had a small part in the movie Me, Myself, and Irene with Jim Carey.
Having an affair with Enrique Iglesias
Anna Kournikova was in the music video for Enrique Iglesias’s song “Escape” at the end of 2001. There were a lot of fans of Enrique’s music all over the world, not just in his home country of Spain. As an example, “Bailamos,” a huge hit, was number one on the US Billboard Hot 100.
There was a lot of energy between Enrique and Anna in the music video for “Escape.” They kissed each other in some sexy scenes.
The singer said at the time, “I’ve never met her before, but I’m a big fan.” A lot of guys probably want to meet her. I’m one of them. “She’s pretty, smart, and a great tennis player, so I’m sure she’ll do great in the video too.”
Anna and Enrique were meant to do more than just work together, as it turned out.
Soon after they met, the two started dating. They then moved to Miami, but they did everything they could to stay away from the cameras and the media.
In 2017, they had twins named Lucy and Nicholas. Three years later, in 2018, they had a girl named Mary.
I love being a mum. I always wanted kids, whether I had my own or adopted them. She said in 2019: “I love taking care of people.”
At age 42, this is Anna Kournikova.
She also said, “Marriage isn’t important to me.” “I think we should be honest with each other, trust each other, and respect each other fully.” We’ve been together for a long time. He is like me in male form, and I am like him in female form.
In season 12 of NBC’s “The Biggest Loser,” Kournikova came back to TV as a personal trainer. As we already said, she’s built up a $50 million business over the years. It goes without saying that she still looks great at 42!
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