Kournikova playing doubles at Medibank International Sydney in 2002.Country Russia
Residence Miami Beach, Florida, United States
Date of birth June 7, 1981 (1981-06-07) (age 27)
Place of birth Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Height 1.72 m (5 ft 7+1⁄2 in)
Weight 56 kg (120 lb)
Turned pro October 1995
Plays Right; Two-handed backhand
Career prize money US$3,584,662
Anna was born in Moscow, Russia (Soviet Union then) on June 7, 1981. Her father, Sergei Kournikov was 20 at the time.Sergei, a former Greco-Roman wrestling champion, had earned a Ph.D and was a professor at the University of Physical Culture and Sport in Moscow. As of 2001, he was still a part-time martial arts instructor there.Her mother Alla, a sturdily built blonde who was 18 when Anna was born, had been a 400-meter runner.
Sergei said: "We were young and we liked the clean, physical life, so Anna was in a good environment for sport from the beginning."The family name is spelled in Russian without an "o", so a direct translation would be "Kurnikova", and it is sometimes written that way. But it is pronounced "Kournikova", so the family chose that as their English spelling.
Anna received her first tennis racquet as a Christmas gift in 1986 at age 5.Anna says: "I played two times a week from age five. It was a children's program. And it was just for fun; my parents didn't know I was going to play professionally, they just wanted me to do something because I had lots of energy. It was only when I started playing well at seven that I went to a professional academy. I would go to school, and then my parents would take me to the club, and I'd spend the rest of the day there just having fun with the kids.
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