Anna Kournikova

Anna Kournikova was born on June 7th 1981 at Moscow, Russia to the couple of Allah and Sergei. She had a liking for tennis at a small age. When Anna was 5 years old she received her first tennis racquet as a Christmas gift from her parents. Her parents had to sell their TV to buy her the present. Until the age of 11 Anna played in a club nearby her place. Then after sometimes she had to move to Bradenton, Florida in USA to train with Nick Bollitierri. Anna then went on to represent Russia in a Fed cup match at the age of 14. She became the youngest player ever to win a fed cup match thus creating history. At the age of 15, Kournikova made her WTA debut at the US Open but finally lost against Steffi Graf who was the number 1 player at that time. In the doubles event of that same tournament she made it to the quarter finals. In the year 1996 she won the rookie of the year award. In the following year she improved tremendously to even make it to the semifinals of Wimbledon. She then lost to Martina Hingis (the world number one then) at the French Open and at Wimbledon. After that she made her way to the first career WTA final in Key Biscane against Venus Williams in a tough 3 set match. It was the year 1999 that she won her first professional title at Midland, Michigan, which was an ITF tournament. She won her second career ITF tournament in Illinois the same year. She was the 5th favorite there. In Tokyo she won her first doubles title with Monica Seles. In 1999, Kournikova won her first grand slam title the 'Australian Open' pairing with Martina Hingis in doubles. After that they began to play together regularly, and have become one of the best pairs. For the 1999 season Anna finished the number 1 in doubles considering the fact that she didn't compete in Wimbledon and even in the US Open. Anna is still very young at age but very old in experience and seems to have a great future ahead of her. She reached the 10th spot in WTA ranking which is also her best at that time. In the year 1999, she had to make an important move from IMG to Octogon for her agency. Some people thinks that she was jealous of all the sponsorship deals going after Martina Hingis which she wasn't getting from IMG. That probably made that move. Her agent was Phil de Picciotto. Anna wants to be amongst the top 5 players of the world which she is very much capable of achieving.