Anna Kournikova Did *Not* Suck At Tennis, You Insipid Fucking Morons

Welp...another calendar year, another blog entry. At least this time around, I can pat myself on the back for not taking an entire year to post something. I'll consider that some kind of moral victory, I guess. In the meantime, please pardon a bit of my usual brand of candor before today's subject is fully delved into, because it's imperative that my motivations for this particular post get talked about with as much acuity that I can muster up, and it happens to directly correlate to how I finally roused myself and made this long-gestating hypothetical idea a reality.

As I've no doubt stated several times on this blog, starting this little project of mine was not done with any grand design in mind - not beyond the initial idea, anyway - and it certainly wasn't started with the intention of presenting myself as some sort of Grand Authority on tennis. It was, quite simply, a labor of love, a way to combine two of my biggest passions (tennis and writing, naturally) whenever I felt motivated enough to chime in. I knew that matching my opening salvo of dropping a blog a day for an entire month would have been hard to match by any reasonable standard, but regardless of how often I was able to produce content, it was and is my ongoing hope to treat this as a space that will always be here whenever I am ready for it.

And oh, am I finally ready, if that purposely incendiary post title didn't tip you off. I've wanted to write about this for a really, really long time, but it's ended up becoming a greater source of anxiety than I ever anticipated. For several months now, I've been dealing with an epic case of writers' block across all platforms, regardless of subject matter - there are many reasons for this, including the never-ending changes in life that I feel like I'm still trying to adjust to (and no, I don't need furniture anymore!), but this has largely has been the fallout from a fairly modest professional writing opportunity I had last summer that went south in a hurry, where an article I'd been working on for months got hacked all to pieces and published without my consent. I mention this not to grind axes any further than they've already been ground, nor to get into a public mud-slinging competition - what's done is done, though yes, I admittedly was furious and super petty in the incident's immediate aftermath. No, I bring this up because the residual effects of what happened have left me lacking in confidence and feeling supremely self-conscious about my hobby. I can't count the number of times since the article affair where I've tried to write something, anything, subject matter be damned, only to stop and inevitably find myself thinking, "this is stupid. Why am I doing this? No one cares" and shutting down before I get anywhere or bother to develop anything. That's been the hardest thing to deal with: something that I used to not have to think about too much, something that used to be an an arena I could turn to for its many cathartic and healing properties has, for several months now, sadly, been turned into something of a nerve-racking experience every time I've made an attempt.

In addition, the fact that I've been putting undue pressure on myself to come up with something both worthy and respectful of the person in question hasn't helped, either; the perception of this player as nothing more than a marketing tool, a proverbial "bimbo with a racket" with no redeeming skill whatsoever, still seems to exist, amazingly enough, and has pissed me off for a very long time. I certainly didn't want the final result of all this to be something that ends up reducing her to mere eye candy or a simple recitation of stats about how she was one of the most-searched athletes on the web, as if that's all her playing career consists of - sure, her popularity is an integral part of the story, but in making this post, my goal is to talk about her primarily as a professional athlete, first and foremost, and how much her ubiquity in the sport during her career is directly correlated to the fact that, you know, she was actually good at her job for the most part, and may very well have achieved more than what she did were it not for the plague that has bitten so many athletes over time: recurring injuries.

With all of that having been gotten off my chest, I am powering through it all - the doubts I have about writing, the questions about whether or not I can do a good job - and I'll try my best to be insufferably long-winded informative and entertaining as always. And before we finally plow ahead, I want to send a huge shoutout to the folks on Tennis Twitter for unwittingly throwing me a bone with this one, seriously: it's honestly been the final push I needed in overcoming all of my recent uncertainty about my chosen form of expression and turning this long-held idea into reality. Dare I say it, it suddenly seems a bit timely, given the recent discussions as of late revolving around players and their alleged importance (a word I've got a lot of thoughts on) in the sport's history. But I digress - at long last, I will wrap up my contextual babbling and just get on with it already.

Yeah, I bet *that* got your attention, didn't it? For shame, you dirty devils. For shame. 😁

The seeds for this post were first planted a couple of years ago, when two persona non gratae myself and a couple of gentlemen that I was living with at the time were sitting down to watch the 2017 Wimbledon tournament. It was a ladies' contest; as such, the WTA was a running topic of conversation. Being the far more knowledgeable person about the sport as compared to the two people I was sitting with, it nevertheless proved to be quite a fruitful conversation, at least upon first blush. Then by happenstance, a name was spoken of someone whom I don't think I'd thought of in years at that point:

Anna Kournikova. 

I felt a pang of nostalgia as my thoughts immediately seemed to whisk me back in time 20 years to 1997, the year of Anna's biggest moment of glory in tennis, and a most pivotal time in my fandom of the sport. I was but a mere 10 years old then, caught up in all of the awkward hormonal trappings and nerdy interests of my pre-teen years, and while both myself and many other Chicago residents of the time, young and old, were captivated by the spell that was Michael Jordan, my abiding love of tennis began to fully flower that year. I'd become aware of the sport some four years prior, but 1997 cemented it as my favorite: it's the first time I can remember having cable to access all four majors throughout the year and, in the days before the internet was an omnipresent thing, the first year that I can recall feverishly checking newspaper box scores, all in the name of getting my fix and staying up to date.

Among other fond memories of this momentous year in my life - the serving and volleying of the devilishly handsome (especially in hindsight) Patrick Rafter, Martina Hingis winning just about everything in sight on the WTA side, Andre Agassi's pink shirt at the U.S. Open, Pete Sampras having some real Petr Korda issues, the first signs of what was to come from the Williams sisters, to name but a few - was witnessing the breakthrough of this talented Russian teenager, who was quickly rising up the rankings since turning pro at the tail end of 1995, and who seemed poised for superstardom after her performance at the '97 Wimbledon tournament, at the time, only the second instance of a women's player progressing as far as the semifinals during their Wimbledon debut (and I believe something that only Alexandra Stevenson has since matched).

Now, I mentioned it a couple of paragraphs ago, but please keep in mind that I was only 10 while all of this was happening. As much as I don't want this to devolve into yet another piece that minimizes her career into being nothing more than good looks and marketing muscle, it's rather difficult to tell Anna's story without noting how much her appearance caused ripples the way that it did; even some of the more benign contemporary articles I found in researching this piece make reference to her "much-photographed figure" and such. I at least feel like things are a little more age appropriate in my case, but for remembrances' sake, let the record show that I too was quite smitten, not only because of her looks, but just as much by the fact that she played the sport that I happened to be gravitating towards the most.

All of these thoughts and more went flooding through my head, yet as I was lost in the haze of fond memories, I was rudely and abruptly snapped out of my reverie when one of the gentlemen blurted out a rather cutting, dismissive phrase, something that shouldn't have shocked me, words that I imagine many variations of being spoken ever since her playing career ended, yet still makes the hairs on my arms stand up when I remember the cold, callous manner in which it was uttered:

"It's too bad she sucked at tennis."

(In the aftermath of her greatest triumph - reaching the 1997 Wimbledon semifinals)

Has there ever been another tennis star quite like Anna Kournikova? Has there ever been another player who turned heads quite like she did, who captivated so many imaginations and, for a brief time, seemed to have the tennis world on a string? More importantly, has there ever been a player who has been tagged with such an enduring perception of apparent mediocrity (particularly among know-nothings like the ones described above) to the point that she has become...dare I say it...underrated?

To be as bold as to suggest something like that comes with full recognition of the metaphorical can of worms that I am daring to open. The instant, almost reflexive response is one I can hear being uttered by both casual and dedicated fans alike: "she can't be underrated! She never won a singles title!"

Indeed, the failure of Anna to win a singles title during her time on tour seems to be the one stat that is universally fixated upon. No matter the (overwhelming, IMO) evidence that can be presented to the contrary, the impression many people continue to have, especially among those who don't follow the sport regularly, is that of a titleless wonder, one whom evidently never had any success whatsoever, hence the continued label of her and "sucking" at tennis (among other derisive associations).

Ah, but we wouldn't be here today if the story was that simple, would we? 

Reducing Anna's career to being a failure because of her lack of a singles title has always struck me as being a grievous error, as the issue is much more complex than would initially appear on the surface. First and foremost is the fact that she turned professional at a very young age, and was also done playing professionally while she was still very young - she was 14 when she first hit the professional tour in the fall of 1995, and when injuries ultimately curtailed her career some eight years later, in 2003, she was a mere 22 years of age. In an era where players' longevity seems to be more present than ever before (and let the record show that Anna was born in June of 1981, just a few months before the still-active Serena Williams), 22 hardly seems like a time that most professional athletes are ready to call it quits. Were one to project a more "normalized" ending to her career - let's say that she retired after her age 30 season, in 2011 - it personally strikes this amateur scribe as highly likely that she would've eventually gotten over the finish line, had she remained healthy. How many late career breakthroughs have we seen in the last couple of decades? We'll never know for sure, of course, and this also doesn't mean that she was poised to become a multi-Slam winner or anything along those lines. But I want to be very strident in emphasizing the fact that it was not her alleged mediocrity that caused her retirement - it was the fickle nature of the human body.

What especially seems strange to me about tagging Anna's career as some sort of disaster is that a simple, cursory glance of the raw statistics proves in spades that she was a talented individual. Perhaps this perception is a result of all of the casual souls who became interested in the sport thanks to her elevated Q-rating and were simply not aware or didn't understand what she accomplished, and because of the prominence of the singles game, her achievements have gone unheralded. But one need only look at the facts, which should prove the obvious to anyone with even half a brain. Even before her performance at Wimbledon '97, she was named the WTA's Newcomer of the Year in 1996, after improving her ranking some 200+ spots and making the fourth round of that year's U.S. Open as a 15-year-old qualifier, losing to the eventual champion, Steffi Graf. She spent the three years after her Wimbledon breakthrough as a constant presence in the world's top 20, peaking at a high of #8, scoring 16 total top 10 victories, and reached four singles finals, three of which were Tier I tournaments under the WTA's old classification system. Her run in the 1998 Miami tournament seems especially notable - in reaching the final, she defeated four top 10 players in a row (a stat I was salivating at trotting out for this piece but is apparently commonplace nowadays, heh), all of them former or future Grand Slam champions (in order: Seles, Martinez, Davenport, and Sanchez-Vicario), before losing in the final to Venus Williams. While she never again progressed as far as the semifinal stage of a major after her Wimbledon '97 success, this doesn't mean she stopped playing well at the big events; in fact, at one point, she made the second week of six straight majors she participated in, from the 1998 Roland Garros tournament to the 2000 Australian Open (missing two in that time span due to - you guessed it - injuries). Hell, even her 2002 season seems noteworthy: the previous year, she'd suffered a stress fracture in her left foot, missing most of the year and seeing her ranking fall from a spot in the year's top 10 in 2000 to a final position of #74 in 2001. She managed to halve that during her comeback year of 2002, though, once more being ranked in the top 40 by season's end and reaching a singles final to boot, before recurring back injuries began to crop up and forced her to call it quits the following year.

And this is a person that "sucks" at tennis, mind you. Tough crowd.

The plot thickens even further when you incorporate Anna's doubles success into the story. Now, I'll admit: I'm guilty of not following the doubles aspect of tennis with the same zeal that I do for singles. A large part of this is because my love of the singles game as a solitary sport - with no teammates to rely upon, it's up to the individual to figure out game plans and strategies, and how to dig themselves out of tough situations whenever necessary (barring instances of illegal coaching or timeouts at the non-Slam events on the WTA side, that is). Having a partner undermines some of the aspects of the sport that appeal to me, but it doesn't mean that I don't have tremendous respect for the people who earn their living playing doubles - it's a blast to watch a professional doubles match in person, honestly - and it doesn't mean that their hard work or success should be any less valued or cherished. When you look at Anna's doubles results, they're simply dynamite: as early as 1995, she'd already reached a main-level tour final in doubles, and she ultimately won two majors partnering with Martina Hingis at the Australian Open, in 1999 and 2002; the pair also won the year-end doubles championship in 1999 and 2000. She won 16 total titles, finished 1999 as the world's top-ranked doubles player, and remained a highly-ranked competitor in the format, all running concurrently with her singles career. 

Therein lies the rub when it comes to the common approach of analyzing Anna Kournikova and her career: I believe that a lot of the perception of her alleged suckitude at tennis comes from the prevalence of the singles game in the minds of the average person (and the constant fixation of her not winning a title in the singles format), because if more people were aware of her doubles success, there's absolutely no way that this idiotic thought would be so commonplace. How - HOW - can a multiple-time Grand Slam champion and a world #1 ranked doubles player EVER be considered bad at what they do?! I'm willing to bet anything that if you hit most people who happen to be spouting the typical "she sucks" crap with the response, "oh, you mean Grand Slam champion Anna Kournikova?" they'd look at you like you were crazy; personally, that's what I'm gonna be doing from here on out.

Under ordinary circumstances, this would have been the end of the story - while the above info is likely to be old hat to the seasoned tennis observer, it's imperative for me to mention all of that in trying to challenge the status quo of how Anna seems to be commonly regarded. As fate would have it, though, her name has popped up in discussions recently among the tennis crowds on Twitter. The conversations have centered around which WTA players might be considered "important," and, among many other suggested names, Anna was mentioned as a potential candidate, largely because of the very things I've tried to avoid framing this post around: her looks, her marketability, the way she (unwittingly?) tapped into a certain zeitgeist. 

Now, I personally didn't dive too deeply into the rabbit hole of these discussions - for the sake of common courtesy, I'll bite my tongue in regards to the main reason why, though it's not a secret if you follow me on Twitter - and, not having much of an affinity for podcasts, didn't listen to what I'm sure was a carefully reasoned analysis for the criteria of so-called "importance." I will say point blank, though, that using the term important as a descriptive quality for athletes comes off to me as a deliberate weasel word that is designed to start arguments - it's akin to the old High Fidelity mindset, devolving everything in life into an endless series of meaningless "top 5" lists about any given subject. In the context of assessing professional athletes where (unlike other subjective artforms) they are specifically judged on their ability to produce results, calling someone important is using a word that is so vague, so ill-defined, that it could literally mean anything. Perhaps that's the point in using it, and if it's a term that holds significant meaning to you, dear reader, then by all means, you do you. But I'm not drinking the Kool-Aid; quite often, we are asked what our "favorites" are, or what we think are the "best" examples of something, i.e., what are your favorite albums? What do you think are the best movies ever made? But "important"? Pssssh. That could mean fucking anything. I could easily cite, say, Jeff Tarango as being an "important" tennis player for me, being that he was involved in one of the first widely publicized professional tennis meltdowns I can recall hearing about in my younger years (if you've been watching the sport long enough, you know the one). But does that make him "important" in tennis history? In my personal life, maybe, but even then, nah, I really don't think so. To me, there's a big difference in calling a person a vague, open-ended term like important, as opposed to saying that they should be fondly remembered - that is what I'm attempting to do with this post. I personally wouldn't consider Anna to have the criteria to qualify for any so-called top 10 of importance - there are simply far too many players with better records and a much bigger influence than she. But, she absolutely does deserve a much fairer shake than what she's gotten over the years - that much should be clear to you by now.

(And just for the record, since this person immediately came to mind in terms of "importance": did anyone on Tennis Twitter mention Renee Richards at all? Surely the first major trans athlete in the history of the sport would deserve a spot on anyone's top 10 of importance, certainly over Anna Kournikova, hmm? Especially if on-court results aren't considered to be the primary criteria for importance. Just sayin', peeps!)

(I purposely tried to use on-court photos for this post, but nostalgia has rendered me unable to resist using the two pictures that bookend all the others. Sue me. :D)

As usual, I tend to be someone who writes with more of a "food for thought" approach; as usual, I don't have all the answers, nor am I telling you that my line of thinking is gospel. No one is saying that Anna Kournikova is a Hall of Famer; no one is suggesting that she be canonized as an all-time great, or that injuries prevented her from ascending to the top of the game. We will simply never have the answers to this hypothetical scenario. But can we just like, cut it out with this stupid ass automatic reflex that associates her with being overrated or sucking? Particularly since I feel like so much of that comes from people who didn't actually watch the sport with any continued dedication and therefore - surprise surprise - have no fucking clue of what they're talking about. Hell, I'll go one step further if you're an American and you're parroting that garbage: if she DID suck at tennis, you wouldn't have any fucking clue of who she was, given the rather niche status of the sport in this country. It should be plainly evident: she. was. a. talented. player. If these things - making the Wimbledon semifinals at age 16, being a perennial top 10-20 player when healthy, a career singles record comfortably above .500, being a no. 1 ranked, Grand Slam winning doubles player - if that is somehow supposed to be an indicator of someone "sucking" at tennis, please, dear Lord almighty, by all means, sign me the fuck up. Seriously.

Have I made myself clear, you insipid fucking morons?!?! AHHHHH!!!!! 

:)