A short Biography on Anna
Anna is coached by Larissa Preobrajenskaya, and has been working at the Nick Bolletieri Academy since 1992. It is famed for the harsh demands it makes on its players. Alumni include Andre Agassi and Monica Seles.
At the end of 1995 Anna was ranked 281 in the world, but in the ITF Junior rankings she was No. 1. She was the ITF world Junior Champion, winning both the Orange Bowl and the European Championships.
In the 1996 US Open , only her second main draw event, Anna successfully qualified and managed to reach the last 16, defeating the No. 14 seed Barbara Paulus on the way, eventually losing to the No. 1 seed and eventual champion Steffi Graf in the Fourth Round. Earlier in the same year she became the youngest player (at the age of 14) to win a Federation Cup match when she helped Russia to defeat Sweden 3 - 0.
By the end of 1996 Anna Kournikova had become more widely known throughout the world. At this years French Open Anna reached the third round where she faced Martina Hingis. This was billed as a match that could not be missed as it was their first meeting on the Professional Circuit, having played each other before only as Juniors. Regrettably Anna lost in straight sets but now Anna was getting the attention she deserved, though her tennis was not the primary reason for this - her attire was. She sported a black tennis dress with three white stripes down each side, the logo of her sponsors Addidas, also sponsors of Britains Tin Henman. Allegedly the dress was "So short she had to stand at the back of the court to tie her shoe laces".
At Wimbledon a few weeks later, the British public finally noticed her. There were articles and pictures in all the newspapers. A prime example is a story in one of Britains most popular tabloids, which predicted that this Wimbledon was going to remembered as the Wimbledon of sex, with Anna, Martina Hingis, Mary Pierce and Amanda Coetzer all becoming well known and all regarded as attractive. Curiously there was no mention of Anke Huber though...
The tournament organisers knew they were onto a good thing when they Scheduled Anna's first round match against Chandra Rubin, another supposed player of the future who had been ranked in the top ten, on Centre Court. It wouldn't have mattered if Anna had not hit a single ball, her looks had already ensured that the media would be full of articles about her. However Anna did hit the ball very well, and gave the higher ranked Rubin a crushing 6 - 1, 6 - 1 defeat in a mere 44 minutes.
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