The 'creepy and gross' secret behind Anna Kournikova's rise

Even at the age of 10, Anna Kournikova was as renowned for her looks as she was for her ability on the tennis court.

The revelation that management giant IMG considered her appearance to be a factor when she was discovered as a pre-teen in Russia was detailed by New York Times tennis writer Ben Rothenburg on the ‘No Challenges Remaining’ podcast.

Rothenburg disclosed the claims to his co-host, WTA Insider senior writer Courtney Nguyen.

“Even before her results started, even when she was a junior, people talked about her at IMG – which is creepy and gross, but it still happens to this day; ‘Oh my God, you should see this 12-year-old, she’s beautiful’,” Rothenberg said.

“People saw her as this package, and she became that.”

Despite never winning a major singles title, Rothenburg said Kournikova’s impact on women’s tennis was enough to consider her among the sport’s top 10 players.

A marketing giant in her prime, Kournikova commanded multi-million dollar endorsement deals with the likes of Adidas, Omega and Berlei.

Kournikova’s career winnings were surprisingly meagre at only $3.5 million, but it was off the court where she really made her living.

At one point, she was earning $10 million annually through various brand and product endorsements.

Rothenburg said it was the influence she had as a personality that changed the perception of women’s tennis.

“She in the late ’90s completely, I think, changed the way the sport was looked at and was talked about and was interpreted and evaluated, in ways that have lasted forever,” he said.

“Anna Kournikova was known, first and foremost, for being beautiful and sexy, and it was like at this bizarre time in the world – the dawn of the internet – and she was always in the ranks of ‘the most downloaded woman on the internet’ and had this discussion about her, people going nuts for her in this beginning of search engines, beginning of jpegs on the internet, people downloading pictures.

“Anna was seen as being only beautiful, and people completely overlooked and minimised and diminished, I think, her tennis. Because she was not a bad player.”

“She was not a puppet”

While Kournikova’s success off the court eventually outweighed her achievements on it, Nguyen said it was unfair to dismiss her playing career.

Due to the nature of her stardom and her relative lack of on-court success compared to her more credentialed but lesser-known opponents, many on the tour dismissed her ability.

“She gets a lot of stick in a very unfair way, in my opinion, because I think that if you were at some point a top 10 player, you did pretty good,” Nguyen said.

“(Sex appeal) is just always going to be part of the sport.

“With Kournikova, she just kind of came around at a time and was kind of that perfect person to take it to a different level.

“In all fairness, Anna wanted to take it to that level.

“She was never being asked to do something she didn’t want to do.”

Rothenburg agreed with Nguyen’s assessment of Kournikova’s off-court success.

“She was calling her own shots, to a large degree. She was not a puppet.”

Kournikova played her final WTA singles match in 2003, at the age of just 21.

She finished her career without a major singles title, but won 16 doubles tournaments.