Anna in Wonderland: Kournikova ponders next move

With her life in neutral, Anna Kournikova is wondering where to go from here.

You remember how you felt right after graduation, staring into the abyss as you tried to map out the rest of your life? Anna Kournikova understands that feeling well.

“I’m looking and trying to see what’s out there,” says the model-esque Kournikova, who suffered through foot, ankle, and back injuries during a nine-year career that ended in 2003. She famously failed to win a singles title in more than 100 WTA events played. “I feel like I’m coming out of college, definitely having moments where I say, ‘What am I going to do?’ It is a little bit scary.”

Her blink-of-an-eye cameo in the movie Me, Myself & Irene (2000) has not spurred any acting aspirations, and she’s not the camera hound she use to be. Now she writes a column on sports and fitness for Elle magazine, does charity work for the Boys’ & Girls’ Clubs of America, and plays exhibitions.

She has also played World TeamTennis for the past four summers, most recently for the Sacramento Capitals.

“For 17 years I was dedicated to my sport and I never tried anything else,” says Kournikova, who was the world’s No. 1 junior in 1995. “I’ll always have that competitiveness. I miss that, and the adrenaline rush. It’s very difficult to replace that feeling. But I used to play in pain all the time.”

Earlier this year, Kourni­kova was reunited in Miami with her old pal and doubles partner, Martina Hingis, with whom she giggled her way to Australian Open doubles titles in 1999 and 2002. “We talked, just about friends and stuff, before she went off to play,” says Kournikova, who lives in Miami with her longtime boyfriend, singer Enrique Iglesias. “I think it’s wonderful that she’s back, just incredible.”

As for Kournikova, she says she’s happy, and she looks it too. “I may say that I feel like I’m coming out of college,” she says with a laugh, “but actually it kind of feels like I’m in kindergarten, just starting out with everything ahead of me.”

This story appeared in the November/December issue of TENNIS.