*!Anna
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by Pete Bodo
Mornin'. Obsessing over Roger Federer's inability to convert match points? Agitated over the condition of Rafael Nadal's wisdom teeth? Bummed that you won't get to see what Ashley Harkleroad looks like with her clothes on (she already lost her first-round match in Florida)? It's all part of gearing up for Miami. And speaking of crossover stars, I'm hoping to bump into Anna Kournikova down there next week. I had a nice telephone visit with her just a few weeks ago.
The subject, then, was the December USO tour that took Anna to Iraq, Afghanistan and a U.S. military hospital in Germany. Also along on the trip: Nick Bollettieri, comedian David Attell, country singer Billy Ray Cyrus and Kim Dozier, the CBS news correspondent who was seriously wounded in Iraq in 2006. That's Anna above, with Attell (photo credit to U.S. Navy petty officer 1st class Chad J. McNeeley). The group was shepherded by U.S. Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The mission was the familiar one: holiday season morale and comfort building for the U.S. troops based overseas. These USO tours are not the typical celebrity drive-bys, nobody who ever took part in one ever mistook it for hosting a charity golf pro-am, or a Las Vegas New Year's Eve party. Let's start with the fact that the participants don't get paid a dime; they're obliged at times to wear forty pounds of protective body armor and helmets; they travel "in country" in military helicopters, and run - not unlike soldiers in a hot zone - on caffeine and adrenaline.
Going back some years, to the heyday of Kournikova's notoriety, you might feel obliged to ask, "Anna Kournikova and the USO? Who woulda thunk it?"
At the peak of her career, Kournikova was often described as a prematurely haughty starlet who was overly engaged in manipulating the public with her sex appeal (her No. 1 ranking as a Internet search term surpassed her career-high singles ranking by seven places). Some saw Kournikova as Lolita ver. 2.5, or a precursor to the Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan generation; let's remember, Kournikova famously called out to a fan who proposed marriage, "You can't afford me!"
And when did it become a crime to issue a withering put-down of the kind that gained Kournikova such notoriety? The kind of piety that Kournikova's remark teased out of some makes me roll my eyes, much like the professed horror of those who think Pete Sampras's tipping habits constitute some sort of judgment on his character. Some people will leap on any opportunity to declare their moral superiority.
When it came to Kournikova, I was always more interested the spunky but determined child who recognized her charms for what they were - tools. And even back then I was curious about the tomboy who used to get chased away from the supermarket near where she lived for whacking tennis balls at the exterior wall, who had no use for dolls, and was interested in boys only insofar as she could make a game of being chased (literally) by them. When I wrote a Tennis magazine cover story on Kournikova in the spring of 2001, it was that dimension of Kournikova's personality and (untold) history that intrigued me and led me to go on an exhibition tour in South America to spend a little time with her. It was a fruitful trip.
Anna, I learned, was often chastised for the same ball-whacking offense in the lobby of the apartment building where she lived, because growing up with her parents and grandparents in an apartment that she described as "six or eight meters square" didn't give her much opportunity to practice at home. When we spoke recently, I reminded her of the way she described the difficulties of developing a world-class game in Moscow as the spearhead of the Russian WTA revolution: "We often played with tennis balls that had no hair."
Knowing a little about how far Kournikova had come, I was always irritated when people - including scores who failed to distinguish themselves despite having far, far more opportunity - suggested that Kournikova was merely a media sensation, or ridiculed her for having become so famous while not having won a single WTA title. Scads of WTA players who won tournaments never came close to matching Kournikova's career-high singles ranking of No. 8, nor her two Grand Slam doubles titles. And the one thing I do know is that they don't sell or give away those ranking numbers and titles. And how good are you at what you do, bucko?
Of course, that's all ancient history. That controversy has run its course, and the Kournikova who emerged from it is appealing in a different, more fundamental and substantial way. My pal El Jon Wertheim of Sports Illustrated had the same feeling after spending some time with Anna not long ago. He was amused by how genuinely mortified and apologetic she was when he reminded her of some of her imperious, youthful transgressions. As is so often true in cases like Kournikova's, it's a good idea to wait until someone grows up before we being making judgments about his or her character.
In addition to three tours for the USO, Anna is involved with the Boy's and Girl's Clubs of America and Population Services International (she has toured Haiti and Russia on behalf of that organization). If you want to engage her on a topic of humanitarian interest, she's happy to talk about the push for better world health, clean water, or the battle against malaria. "It gives me emotional satisfaction to know that with the name I acquired through tennis, sports, bikini photo shoots and all that, that I can bring attention to causes I care about," she told me. "It makes me feel that I now am giving back."
Some of you may react cynically to the idea of Anna Kournikova as a sort of South Beach Mother Teresa, but she makes no claim to that. But also ask yourself, just how notorious has Kournikova been since she was forced off the tour by persistent back problems? I read the New York Post on the subway every day and I haven't seen much of Kournikova on the infamous Page 6. I know that she's been in a long relationship with the pop star Enrique Iglesias, but she seems to live at the edge of the celebrity radar screen. And that's certainly by design rather than choice, or lack thereof.
!88269761 Anna told me that the USO tour was a pretty exhausting drill (this was her third). Although Bollettieri and Kournikova spent a fair amount of time together, they had little time to reminisce about her early years at Nick's eponymous tennis academy (he was her career-long coach). "Our schedule on tour was to leave at 6 am and get back to our rooms at midnight," Anna told me. "Then we had the 'bag drag' at 4:30 am. So we slept four hours a night, sometimes with no heat, six to a room. Of course, having grown up in Russia, I was used to the brutal cold in Afghanistan. But I still got the flu. Everybody was breaking down. And whenever we had a quiet moment on a plane, we tried to nap. It was very draining, physically, but completely worth it."
I always felt that life as a tennis glamorpuss took Kournikova by surprise, at an age when she was still very impressionable and apt, because of her background, to take full advantage of every opportunity that came her way. This, after all, was the same girl who showed up for her very first lesson with Nick Bollettieri on a day when he was running a little late with a previous pupil. When the precise time of Anna's lesson arrived, she marched right onto the court, interrupting the ongoing lesson, and declared that she was present, and ready to start playing. Brazen hussy, or eager, determined pup? Come to your own conclusions.
There's a toughness about Kournikova - how could there not be? And she also has a good, long memory. She doesn't flee from her past or feel shame about the straits from which she emerged to become a star and celebrity of remarkable reach. "I remember how I got to where I am, I never forget it," she told me. "And I also feel like I earned it. But to this day I still take care of my own s*it. I go to the grocery store, the gas station, do all the everyday things for myself. I don't see life any other way. I like to care of myself and my stuff, and also the people around me. To me, the life of privilege is great, but I never forget where I came from and what's important - which is relations, people, what you do with your life."
Maybe that doesn't exactly qualify as wisdom for the ages. But it wasn't offered up as if it were, either. And according to her own website, Kournikova's favorite non-sporting activities are reading and barbecuing. So much for the fast lane.
I wondered if Anna had plans to start her own family. She said, "I'm not sure about marriage, although I've been in an eight-year relationship (with Iglesias). Somehow, I never dreamed of wearing a pouffy white dress. And the older I've gotten, the more I just appreciate myself and know myself, so when I think of having a family of my own these days I think, if I feel like this at 28, imagine how much more able I'll be to be a good mother at something like 31. I'm in no hurry."
Anna advised me to make sure my own son "doesn't get into texting," adding, "When I work with the Boy's and Girl's clubs, I really see how important it is to have human interactions. Nowadays, kids sit upstairs and their parents say, 'Come down to eat in 10 minutes.' So what do the kids do? Text. What can 10-year olds text about? When I was 10, we didn't even have cell phones, it was all about interactions."
Yes, but that was long ago and far away. And only Anna Kournikova really knows just how far.