In defense of Anna Kournikova

It is popular to put down Anna Kournikova, who is perceived as a no-talent, brainless blonde who traded on her good looks to become a kind of athletic Paris Hilton. Even the famously tactful Chris Evert once remarked, "She looks very pretty--there, I said something nice about her." The latest putdown comes from Mike Brewster in TennisLife magazine, in an article called: "The Queens of Bling--How to Succeed in Tennis Without Really Trying." In this article, Brewster makes the astonishing statement that Kournikova "earned an estimated average annual off-court income of $9 million while winning exactly zero WTA events during her eight years on tour."

What is startling about that statement is that Kournikova has 18 doubles titles, two of them Grand Slams. She was the number one doubles player in the world at one time, and she was consistently ranked in the top 10 singles players while she was active on the WTA tour. We may not like Kournikova's exploitation of her looks in pursuit of money, but that is a separate issue. It doesn't take away the fact that she is a very gifted tennis player.

A tennis prodigy, Kournikova came to the United States to train when she was nine. In 1997, she became the second woman (Evert was the first) in the Open era to reach the semifinal in her Wimbledon debut. However, her career was plagued with injuries, particularly injuries to her back.

Kournikova's mother is said to be on a par with some of the most distasteful tennis fathers in recent history, and one of my crackpot theories is that Kournikova unconsciously became injury-prone in order to get out of doing something she never wanted to do in the first place. At any rate, the injuries have repeatedly sidelined her, and now she is busy being rich and famous.

Brewster's disdain for Kournikova is obviously made possible by his disdain for doubles competition, a sentiment that is surprising in a sports writer, but perhaps, in this case, it just makes it more convenient to further spread misconceptions about Kournikova as an athlete.