For a long time, Anna Kournikova was everywhere — until she wasn't. So what happened to the so-called Britney Spears of Tennis?
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00:00Anna Kournikova was one of the greatest doubles tennis players in history.
00:04She was also once dubbed the Britney Spears of the sport and, in 2002,
00:08was voted the world's sexiest woman by FHM readers. In 2003, however,
00:12injuries forced Kournikova to retire at age 21. After that, she began to live her life out of the
00:17spotlight. Nowadays, Kournikova prefers to focus on her relationship with Enrique Iglesias and their
00:22three children. The former athlete doesn't seem to miss the media attention of her adolescence
00:27and early adulthood, either. In fact, she was never really a fan of it. During a press conference
00:31in 2010, she said,
00:32"...the fame and everything, I guess most of it was created by you guys, by the media a lot of
00:37times. Most of the time the yellow press. Never tried to pay attention."
00:40But she couldn't escape it at the time, and her age made it all the harder to cope with. She added,
00:44"...it was a little hard at times dealing with it being 16,
00:4717 years old, reading some kind of crap about yourself."
00:50Even though she was an athlete, a lot of the media coverage surrounding Kournikova
00:54focused on her looks, with no regard for the fact that she was a minor. Recalling her Wimbledon
00:58debut in 1997, when she was just 16 years old, she told Sports Illustrated,
01:02"...they ran all those photos of my butt."
01:04Kournikova put all this behind her when she left the sport in the early 2000s,
01:08and she hasn't looked back since. Despite her distaste for the media's portrayal of her,
01:12though, Kournikova loved tennis and would have continued to play for years. But her
01:16promising career ended prematurely when a series of injuries made competing impossible. In 2003,
01:21she told The Guardian,
01:22"...Basically, I've had an injury nearly every single year. In 97, I had a stress fracture
01:27and was out for three months. In 98, I had a torn ligament in my thumb and was out for three months.
01:32In 99, I had another stress fracture for three months."
01:34Then, in 2001, she suffered a foot injury that proved a lot more serious than the previous ones.
01:39To fix the damage to her fifth metatarsal, Kournikova had to undergo surgery and was
01:44off the court for months on end. She returned in 2002 with confidence,
01:47only to be hit by a thigh injury in April 2003, followed by a back injury two months later.
01:52That proved to be the final straw.
01:54Obviously, that wasn't how Kournikova had envisioned her tennis retirement going down
01:58when she fell in love with the sport at age 5. In 2011, she told People magazine,
02:02"...I never planned or thought that was going to be it. My back really forced me to stop.
02:06It got so bad. I couldn't tie my shoes, literally. I would be in excruciating pain."
02:10Soon after retiring, Kournikova tried her hand at modeling,
02:13and spent some time doing humanitarian aid in Russia.
02:16"...There's so many things going on, you know. I'm pretty busy. I like being busy.
02:20I'm really hyper, so I have a bunch of projects that I'm working on."
02:24She also attempted to make a transition to reality TV, but that was short-lived.
02:28After only one season, Kournikova was forced out of The Biggest Loser in 2011,
02:33when contestants complained about her overly harsh approach as a trainer. Aside from some
02:37exhibition matches here and there, Kournikova has otherwise remained totally out of the public eye.
02:42In 2017, she and Iglesias managed to welcome twins in secret, proving they really value
02:47their privacy as a family. A source told People,
02:49"...they basically only hang out with family and very close friends.
02:52They mostly keep to themselves. Having one baby is a life-transforming event,
02:56let alone two, but they loved every second of it."
02:58At a concert in March 2018, Iglesias told the crowd,
03:01"...I became a father 12 weeks ago, and I can absolutely tell you two things.
03:05I love my babies. I love them very much."
03:07Kournikova and Iglesias grew their family two years later,
03:10welcoming a daughter in January 2020. They've had their hands pretty full since then,
03:15and after becoming a mother, Kournikova has seemingly dedicated most of her time to her
03:19children. While she doesn't update it often, all of Kournikova's Instagram posts
03:23dating back to early 2020 feature her partner or their kids.