What You Never Knew About Anna Kournikova

Anna Kournikova was born in Moscow, Russia (formerly the U.S.S.R.) on June 7, 1981, to parents Sergei and Alla (via Sportsmates). Her father, Sergei Kournikova, was a former Greco-Roman wrestling champion who held a Ph.D. and later became a professor of sports and athletics. Kournikova's mother, Alla, was a 400-meter runner in her youth. Sergei fostered his daughter's enthusiasm for playing sports at a young age. ”We were young and we liked the clean, physical life, so Anna was in a good environment for sport from the beginning," he said, via Sportsmates.

Kournikova was 5 years old when she got her first tennis racket for Christmas in 1986; she soon after started playing regularly. As she explained, ”I played two times a week from age five. It was a children's program. And it was just for fun; my parents didn't know I was going to play professionally, they just wanted me to do something because I had lots of energy.” At age 7, Kournikova was enrolled at the prestigious Spartak Tennis Club, where renowned coach Larissa Preobrazhenskaya trained her (per Sportsmates). 

Anna Kournikova enjoyed further junior-level success in 1996. Later that year, she started being coached by Ed Nagel, who helped prepare her for the next stage of her development: Grand Slam tournaments.

Symbolizing the pinnacle of the sport, Grand Slams include the four biggest tennis competitions: the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon, and the US Open. Kournikova debuted at her first Grand Slam, the U.S. Open, at age 15. After winning her first-round match against Czech-born Ludmila Richterova, Kournikova spoke positively about the experience. "It's already a good tournament for me," she told The New York Times. "I qualified and then I won my first match. So I think that's great."

Such a confident attitude helped her progress past her second- and third-round opponents, when she faced multiple Grand Slam champion superstar and No. 1 seed Steffi Graf. Kournikova suffered a sobering 6-2, 6-1 defeat, but her successful debut catapulted her ranking from number 144 to 69 (via Independent). Such success was duly recognized at the sport's end-of-year awards, where she was voted WTA newcomer of the year for 1996.

Going into the 1999 season, Anna Kournikova was still determined to excel in the singles discipline, but this year would showcase her outstanding abilities in the doubles game. At the 1999 Australian Open, she partnered up with fierce rival Martina Hingis, and together they won the tournament by beating No. 1 seeds Lindsay Davenport and Natasha Zvereva. This marked Kournikova's first Grand Slam title and the first with Hingis, who dubbed the pair ”the Spice Girls of tennis.” Kournikova commented on this blossoming partnership by saying, ”It feels great. I was really lucky to play with Martina and it's a great tradition" (via The Washington Post).

This superb start to the season was followed by more success, as Kournikova and Hingis won titles at Indian Wells, Rome, Eastbourne, and the year-ending WTA Finals (then known as the WTA Tour Championships), via Tennis Now. This consistency resulted in Kournikova climbing to the No. 1 ranking in doubles, which was her finishing position that season. As a result, she and Hingis were presented with the WTA award for doubles team of the year (via WTA Tennis).

As a highly marketable athlete, Anna Kournikova translated her success to music, agreeing to play the love interest in Enrique Iglesias' music video for "Escape," which reached No. 3 and No. 12 on the U.K. and U.S. charts, respectively. The love affair did not stop there: After the video was filmed, Iglesias and Kournikova began dating. The pair have kept their personal life private — and despite Kournikova listing her Instagram name as Anna Kournikova Iglesias, it is unclear if the couple is actually married. We do know that they are parents to fraternal twins, Nicholas and Lucy, born in December 2017, and a third child, Mary, who was born in February 2020 (via People).

In recent years, Kournikova has mostly kept a low profile away from the spotlight. However, she did pose for the cover of Cosmopolitan Russia's 25th-anniversary edition in 2019, where she also gave her first interview since having children. Today, Kournikova has built up a strong following on Instagram, and regularly shares posts of her spending time with her family.

Anna Kournikova has not played competitively since retiring at the end of 2003, but she has participated in exhibition matches for charitable causes. In late 2004, she joined Elton John and fellow tennis player Andre Agassi in a fundraising event for AIDS charities (via Hello! Magazine). She reunited with Elton in 2008 in an exhibition event, raising funds for Elton's AIDS Foundation and the Atlanta AIDS Partnership Fund (via Project Q Atlanta). Commenting on the sums raised by these events, Elton said at the time, ”What's happened over the 10, 11 years that we've been raising money is that we've sent $50 million out into the communities worldwide, but by the time people have matched those funds once or twice or three times, it's actually $350 million that we've generated.”

The following year, Kournikova teamed up with American tennis great Jim Courier and took on fellow American greats John McEnroe and Tracy Austin at the ”Legendary Night” at New York's Turning Stone Event Center. In a blog post, she wrote enthusiastically about the experience. ”I just love playing with all of them; we have so much fun on the court together!" she said. "In the end, John and I were able to pull it out and win the match!”

In June 2010, Anna Kournikova announced that she and Martina Hingis would return to Wimbledon to compete in the veterans' doubles event. This would be Kournikova's first competitive match since her retirement at the end of 2003. The pair faced and defeated Anne Hobbs and Sam Smith on June 29, 2010 (via The Telegraph).

After the match, Kournikova spoke to The Guardian about the challenges that female professional tennis players face. ”Tennis is a grind, and I think the women, in general, don't get enough credit," she said. "It's a full-time job, it's 24/7. You're week-in, week-out, on the road for 10, 11 months of the year. You have no personal life. You have no home life. It's not glamorous at all.”

Since then, Kournikova hasn't returned to the court competitively, but has stated her intention to continue playing in invitational exhibitions and charity matches. ”Tennis is still one of the biggest parts of my life and I'm very much involved in the game," she told The Daily Mail. "I play the World Team Tennis League in the States right after Wimbledon, and all year round I play tennis exhibitions and charity matches.”

Although Anna Kournikova may not have been as successful as some of her peers — such as the Williams sisters or Martina Hingis, who have each won multiple Grand Slams in singles and doubles — succeeding Russian players have spoken of Kournikova's positive influence on their careers. 

Grand Slam singles champion Svetlana Kuznetsova holds Kournikova in high regard. ”For me, she brought really big popularity to Russian tennis, women's tennis," she told the WTA in 2017. "Everyone after her was just after her. For me, she was a big, huge push." She even dismissed Kournikova's critics who cite her career as a failure. "Everybody was saying she never won a tournament, hee hee ha ha," Kuznetsova went on. "I always defend her when they say 'Oh, she never won a tournament.' So what? She was a top 10 player. It's not just about winning tournaments. I think she was great."

Kournikova even has a cocktail named after her, as well as a poker hand named after her in the Texas hold 'em variation of the card game.