The secretive life of the 'sexiest woman in the world': Anna Kournikova went from tennis pin-up with popstar boyfriend and Friends cameo to rarely-seen recluse living in Miami mansion with 16ft wall
At the height of her fame, she was one of the most photographed women in the world, a magnet for the paparazzi as well as for breathtakingly ignorant jibes about the perceived disparity between her looks and her talent.
Yet the pictures that surfaced this week of a wheelchair-bound Anna Kournikova in the affluent Miami coastal resort of Bal Harbour say more about the former tennis star than a thousand glossy photoshoots ever could.
They offer a poignant reminder of the injury struggles that forced Kournikova, who reached the Wimbledon semi-finals in and achieved a career-high ranking of No 8 in the world, to call time on her career aged
The first photos of the reclusive year-old to emerge in more than two years, which show her wearing an orthopaedic boot while accompanied by her two young daughters, also tell the story of a woman whose life has undergone a sea of change in the years since she departed the sporting stage.
They offer a portrait of the once teenage prodigy as a
Even when a chronic back injury brought her tennis career to a premature conclusion at the age of 21, Anna Kournikova still had the world at her feet.
The profile and marketability of a player whose off-court celebrity eclipsed even her distinguished sporting achievements, which included a Wimbledon semi-final and a career-best ranking of eighth in the world, promised innumerable opportunities as a model, broadcaster or any of the many lucrative avenues one of the world's most recognisable women might have wanted to pursue.
With tens of millions in the bank and a celebrity boyfriend in Enrique Iglesias, the Spanish pop star she met while filming a music video in late , Kournikova was a ubiquitous, global presence - with or without a racket in her hand.
What few would have anticipated is that, 22 years on, a player once described as a 'one-woman international conglomerate' would have retreated so fully from public life that even her marital status remains a matter of conjecture.
What is known, if only through a combination of intermittent glimpses and rare public pronouncements, is that Kournikova and Iglesias remain very much an item.
But what might have been carefully c
Anna Kournikova, un fenómeno del tenis, cumple 40 años
No fue la mejor tenista, pero en los años noventa se hablaba más de ella que de cualquier otrade sus compañeras de profesión, entre las que se encontraban Steffi Graf, Arancha Sánchez Vicario, Mónica Seles, Martina Hingis, Conchita Martínez, Gabriela Sabatini y los primeros años de las hermanas Williams –Venus y Serena-, jugadoras que llegaron a la cima del tenis, un lugar que nunca ocupó Anna Kournikova pero que fue la número uno indiscutible por su fama universal.
Porque Kournikova, nacida en Moscú el 7 de junio de , marcó un antes y un después en el mundo del tenis. Nadie ha sacado tanto rendimiento publicitario a su carrera como la rusa. Su compatriota Maria Sharapova fue una digna heredera del “modelo Kournikova”.
Fue imagen de firmas como Adidas, Yonex, Charles Schwab y Berlei, con las que ganó más dinero que con la raqueta. En se dijo que fue la tenista que más ingresó aunque no ganara ningún torneo individual.
Como tenista, Kournikova fue una de las más precoces en debutar en el circuito femenino, lo hizo con 14 años, participó en los Juegos de Atlanta con Rusia, y alcanzó su mejor resultado
Anna Kournikova Has Had Quite The Dating History
Anna Kournikova was once one of the biggest names in tennis, though has largely retreated from the public eye over the course of her stunning transformation. Before injuries forced Kournikova into an early retirement, she and partner Martina Hingis were a doubles dream team who secured two Grand Slam titles at the Australian Open, among other accolades. Beyond the court, Kournikova has also had quite the interesting dating history, with her love life making headlines both in and outside her native Russia.
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Kournikova allegedly became involved in a messy love triangle situation in , when she was 18 years old. According to The New York Times, that was the year she first crossed paths with reported beau Pavel Bure, a Russian hockey player who was in the NHL for over a decade, and spent to with the Florida Panthers. The thing is, Kournikova was apparently still dating fellow NHL player Sergei Fedorov when she and Bure met. What's more, Bure and Fedorov were once teammates back in Russia, having both played for CSKA Moscow in the late '80s.
Bure reportedly proposed to Kournikova in Florida around , though the two denie
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