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Vince Lombardi never met Anna Kournikova
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Twitter: AJMckenzie94847
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00:00Michigan can't take a timeout.
00:15Hi everybody, I'm Brian Kenney and welcome to ESPN Classics' Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame.
00:20A series that takes a fresh look at sports figures remembered largely for their mistakes,
00:24controversial moments, or questionable decisions.
00:27Over the next half hour, we'll count down the Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame Anna Kornikova
00:32for never winning a WTA singles title.
00:35But first, let's take a snapshot into the past, or maybe a close-up, of a woman
00:38who learned early on that international stardom wasn't all about winning.
00:47Another tennis whiz kid.
00:49She's just 10 years old, and this contender comes from a country better known for borscht than baselines.
00:57When Kornikova first came out, she was a prodigy. I mean, she was a fantastic junior,
01:00and she was this phenomenal talent. Everyone was very excited about her.
01:04I must win, I must play hard, and I'm going to win.
01:10At 14 years old, she won the Orange Bowl Championships. That's the 18 and under championships.
01:15She was winning junior international titles. So she was the real deal.
01:21After years of build-up, she hit the WTA Tour in the fall of 1995.
01:26And the next year, she won the Most Impressive Newcomer Award.
01:30With potential as undeniable as her beauty, Anna Kornikova, at 15,
01:36demonstrated she had the stuff of stardom.
01:39When she hit the Pro Tour, she didn't waltz on, she didn't come quietly,
01:43she stampeded on, and did the merengue right into the center of the dance floor.
01:49In June of 1997, Kornikova, ranked 42nd in the world,
01:54made her Wimbledon debut amid much fanfare, and made it to the semifinals.
01:59She was a sensation. She knew how to play on grass.
02:02She was very confident. She carried herself really like a veteran.
02:07Well, there's one of those forehand rockets.
02:09She's not a pretender anymore. I mean, she's here to stay.
02:12Unlike, say, a Venus Williams, who really hasn't shown us that yet.
02:15Raising the roof.
02:17The following march, at the Lipton Championships in Florida,
02:20Kornikova seemed on the verge of winning her first title.
02:24Yes!
02:26On consecutive days, she dispatched four top ten players
02:30before losing to Venus Williams in her first WTA final.
02:35Everybody at that point believed that Anna Kornikova
02:39would not only win a tennis tournament, but would win a Grand Slam.
02:44By 2000, Kornikova, despite being ranked 8th in the world,
02:49was still without a title.
02:51Yet she was becoming ever more prominent in the public eye.
02:58Somewhere along the way, she turned from being this great tennis player
03:02into this industry.
03:03And you can't do both.
03:04You can't be a one-woman, multinational corporation
03:08and be a fantastic tennis player.
03:11It's a question of putting a lot of effort into it.
03:15Spend more time on tennis court instead of doing TV commercials.
03:19Anna Kornikova.
03:21Congratulations, you won a car.
03:22If she's not doing a calendar shoot, she's doing an MTV shoot.
03:27If she's not endorsing a sports bra and doing a press conference there,
03:32she's doing an Adidas shoot.
03:34At the same time, she tried to keep an eye on the tennis ball,
03:37but as time passed, it was very difficult to do everything.
03:41If she really, really had that brain desire to play well
03:45and to win Grand Slams and beat top players,
03:48then tone down on the press and get back to work.
03:51She wasn't training or practicing anywhere near as much as she should have.
03:55Her interest in doing the other stuff was very detrimental
03:58to her ability to become a better tennis player.
04:02Kornikova didn't improve that much from when she turned 16, 17 years of age.
04:07Most people, they're going to get better.
04:10But Kornikova stalled, and then she became a worse player.
04:14Well, that's double fault number 15.
04:16Her serve totally collapsed.
04:18I remember seeing a match where she double faulted 31 times.
04:23Double fault number three in a row.
04:26Anna Kornikova completed the coveted Anna Slam yesterday
04:29by getting knocked out of the first round of the U.S. Open in 44 minutes.
04:34This gives her first-round KOs from the Australian, French, Wimbledon, and U.S. Open this year.
04:38When you're talking Kornikova, you're talking quickly over.
04:44After her sensational Wimbledon debut,
04:47Kornikova failed to advance past the quarterfinals
04:49in her next 17 Grand Slam tournaments.
04:53At 21, and with her tennis game running on vapors,
04:57she faced a dreary prospect.
05:01Finally, towards the end of her career,
05:03she said,
05:03I can't go out without having won a WTA Tour title.
05:08That will be on my epitaph.
05:10Anna Kornikova was looking anywhere for a place to win a title.
05:13I mean, she's going to places like tennis powerhouses like Luxembourg,
05:17big-time cities like Acapulco.
05:19I mean, it was like a club med trip.
05:21There was one tournament where all the great players were going at each other,
05:24and she was playing, you know, Polish Lobotnik in Argentina or something.
05:28Just, what?
05:30She's played in over 120 tennis tournaments, and she's 0 for it.
05:33She could not win a two-woman tournament against Phyllis Diller.
05:37She stinks.
05:39By the spring of 2003, Kornikova was 0 for 123 in WTA tournaments.
05:46While cameras clicked, the game passed her by.
05:50Even Katrina Srobotnik has won a tournament.
05:53The Queen of Slovenia.
05:55Eleni Danilidu.
05:57Oh, the Greek goddess has won a tournament.
06:00When you look at some of the Muppets who've won WTA Tour titles,
06:03you have to look at Kornikova and say,
06:05you are a very silly girl to have retired with that much talent
06:09without so much as a single trophy.
06:12She will forever be known as this very famous, very beautiful woman who never won a tennis tournament.
06:23You've just seen why the talented player never lived up to her potential.
06:26But before we count down the top five reasons, you can't blame Anna for never winning a WTA.
06:30She was only like 25 or 26 when this came out.
06:35A singles title.
06:37Here are a few points in her favor that didn't make the short list.
06:39We call them the best of the rest.
06:43Hey, she did win in doubles.
06:48Great shot.
06:50You watch her play doubles.
06:51She's fantastic.
06:54Anna's forte was movement and she was brilliant at the net.
06:57She was a genius.
06:59She smelled where the ball was.
07:04Over a four-year stretch, Kornikova won 16 doubles titles,
07:09including two Grand Slam tournaments,
07:11and earned a number one world ranking in 1999.
07:15She returned well.
07:17She came to net well.
07:19And it looked like she had a lot of fun, too.
07:20It was more fun for her to play doubles and singles.
07:26Another best of the rest.
07:28From Russia with Loves.
07:29Before she could know the taste of victory on the WTA circuit,
07:33Kornikova was swept away by more personal pleasures,
07:36while still too young to gain admittance to an R-rated movie.
07:40First there was Sergei Fedorov, the hockey player.
07:42Then there was Pavel Bure, the hockey player.
07:44Those two sparred against each other for her attention,
07:47and there were rumors of million-dollar engagement rings.
07:50She was distracted by these romances and by the Detroit Red Wings.
07:54She was so hot that she probably didn't have as much time for tennis
07:59as she might have had.
08:00In 2001, singer Enrique Iglesias invited Kornikova to make a music video.
08:05While they were still dancing, her first love, tennis, slipped away.
08:11You can blame these older men because they took the focus that a 15- or 16-year-old tennis
08:18prodigy usually has,
08:19and they turned her into a 24- or 25-year-old woman who's worried about things
08:24that most of the young tennis players her age didn't have to deal with.
08:29Our final best of the rest, the Russian Revolution.
08:34Glennon demands an end to the old order by violent means.
08:39Yet, not that one, the tennis one.
08:42She's a pioneer, Anna Kornikova.
08:44She started the Russian Revolution.
08:46She has sparked off a whole lot of other girls who want to be top-line stars.
08:54Anna Kornikova might not have won a WTA singles title,
08:59but look at the influx of Russian women.
09:02That might be Anna Kornikova's greatest achievement.
09:06Eight of the top players on the WTA tour at one time were Russian.
09:10Why?
09:10Because they wanted to be like Anna.
09:12Petrova.
09:13Because of Nat Silva.
09:14Sharapova.
09:15I thank Anna Kornikova.
09:16We have Sharapova and all these Ovas.
09:19You know how hot the Ovas are?
09:21Anytime the Ovas step on the court, game on.
09:27Bad bones.
09:29Kornikova's ill-fated search for victory was hampered by physical setbacks.
09:34I was just unfortunate to get injured a lot of times
09:37and never quite, you know, went all the way.
09:41Where I began to play really, really well and was kind of in a routine,
09:45I started getting injured.
09:46She's been very, very hampered by injuries.
09:49She's a player, I think, who needs confidence, needs to play a lot,
09:52needs to really get in the groove with her game.
09:55Ranked 11th in June of 1998,
09:57Kornikova played second-ranked Steffi Graf in a tune-up match before Wimbledon.
10:03Anna Kornikova's grass court play on the lawns at Eastbourne
10:08was so impressive.
10:10It was all coming together for her.
10:15She beat Graf in the quarterfinals at Eastbourne.
10:18But in doing that, she hurt her thumb.
10:20And while she was able to complete that match,
10:23she wasn't able to play again after that.
10:26And she had to pull out of Wimbledon,
10:27and then she took the next few weeks off.
10:29It ruined the momentum that she was starting to get.
10:32And that's something that happened to Kornikova again, again, and again.
10:37Over the next four years, Kornikova incurred multiple injuries,
10:41including stress fractures in her.
10:43Suffering from an inoperable chronic back problem,
10:45she played her last WTA event in 2003.
10:50In Kornikova's defense,
10:51you have to look at the number of very serious injuries
10:54that she had to put up with.
10:55These are all factors that explain her lack of success.
10:59Were she not injured,
11:01she would have won a WTA title.
11:04We are just getting started.
11:06Up next, reason number four.
11:12Allah Almighty.
11:14Kornikova's mother, Allah,
11:15was a Muscovite version of the classic American stage mom.
11:19After bringing her daughter to America...
11:21The first picture told me she's, you know,
11:27she's like one of those soccer moms.
11:32...and enrolling her in Nick Volateri's tennis camp,
11:35the Almighty Allah stayed in place and pushed the buttons.
11:39She was very, you know, pushy, pushing Anna very hard.
11:43Sometimes too hard.
11:44I've seen her on the practice court with Anna,
11:47dictating how she should hit a ball.
11:49I've seen her push Nick Volateri aside and say,
11:52you know, I will take over now.
11:54And afterwards made Anna do running drills.
11:57And Anna was already exhausted.
11:59And she left the court in tears.
12:02Suddenly she was giving coaching advice.
12:04This was not someone who knew anything about tennis.
12:06She was a long-distance runner.
12:08And yet she seemed suddenly to know everything about tennis.
12:10And when you're telling Nick Volateri how to coach, that's not going to win.
12:15She looked at her mother after every single solitary stroke.
12:21She trusted mom.
12:22That's your foundation, your base.
12:25And it just kind of blows up on you sometimes.
12:28In 1997, Volateri and Kornikova went their separate ways.
12:33At some point, her mother became disenchanted with other coaches.
12:38And her mother took over the coaching.
12:40And I don't think that was a good move.
12:42Why not get some opinions of people that have been there,
12:46that know the game inside and out,
12:48and maybe can help you work on a few of those things?
12:51In Ala's case, I blame her because she took Anna away from the best coaches.
12:56And as a result, maybe Anna wasn't allowed to become the best player she could possibly be.
13:01You look at the numbers.
13:04123 tournaments when her mother was involved.
13:07No wins.
13:15Land of opportunity.
13:17Growing up amid the squalor of post-communist Russia,
13:20Anna's mother, Ala, sought a future without fear and hunger for her daughter.
13:24She chose America.
13:26Russians could face what the experts tonight call a prolonged crisis.
13:31You have to remember where she came from.
13:33A country that had nothing.
13:35There was this high rate of unemployment.
13:38There wasn't food in the grocery stores.
13:40They couldn't have tennis balls.
13:42There was no court time.
13:43She lived in a one-room apartment with her mother and father.
13:46They were playing outside in 35, 30-degree temperatures.
13:50With socks pulled over, their racket arms and their rackets.
13:53Conditions in Moscow were quite bad.
13:57The government stopped giving money to the sports facilities, to sports clubs.
14:02No financing, no chance to play tournaments.
14:06And the only chance left for her at that time was to go abroad.
14:12Anna was 10 when she and her mother arrived in Florida in 1992.
14:17After she turned pro at 14, the full measure of the American dream lay at her feet.
14:23When that braid started flopping around behind her head, and people started watching the way she put her ball in
14:30her teeny-weeny shorts, she wasn't stupid.
14:32She said, wait a minute, I can make more money.
14:36She had multi-million dollar contracts with Adidas when she was 12 years old.
14:40How can you knock her when she's making the sort of money that she is making from it?
14:44The commercial side of the game is her Grand Slam.
14:47In 2000, she's making less than a million dollars in prize money.
14:51And then she's making 10 to 15 million dollars off the court.
14:55Obviously, the priority is off the court.
14:58You can't blame her if she's trying to maximize the income, when the buddy you grew up with back in
15:04Russia can't even get a job.
15:07I've grown up with the first wave of Russian tennis players that were able to play professionally and make money.
15:13They are ingrained, because of where they come from, that if you can make money, that is your number one
15:18objective.
15:18It's more important than winning titles.
15:21Anna has not been able to turn that down, and I can't say that I blame her.
15:26She lived the American dream.
15:27She didn't win a WTA singles title, but she's probably richer and more famous and more successful than any of
15:33the women who did win singles titles at the same time.
15:39If you haven't bought into our argument yet, maybe reason number two will help.
15:47Wonder Women.
15:48While Kornikova flourished off the court, on it, the competition was too powerful for her to succeed at the highest
15:54level.
15:55One reason you can't blame Anna Kornikova for not winning a singles title is that she came along in one
16:00of these eras.
16:01It was like the 60s in rock and roll.
16:05Instead of the super band.
16:07You don't lose.
16:08It's a dumb excuse.
16:10Go beat them.
16:20Winning didn't matter.
16:22While losing in every WTA tournament, exactly who did she really let down?
16:28Who cares?
16:29Who really cares?
16:30Marilyn Monroe is the biggest star in movie history.
16:33But if you look at her career, she didn't win any Oscars, but she sold the industry.
16:40Anna Kornikova, the very same one.
16:42Even if she wasn't winning majors or winning even regular tour events, she had it.
16:53She became a true crossover star and probably the biggest ever crossover star in tennis.
17:0095% of the people who even recognize Anna Kornikova's name now recognize her more for her looks than any
17:04match she ever won.
17:05She is a breathtakingly beautiful woman.
17:09It's hard to get past that when you're a spectator and you're watching her play tennis.
17:12Yes, it's because she is, you know, she just looks great.
17:16She is a sex symbol.
17:17She sells sex in tennis and she makes a very good living out of it.
17:23And in many respects, what on earth is wrong with that?
17:25I'm getting ready to walk across the street and all of a sudden this double-decker bus comes by and
17:32it's plastered.
17:33It's Anna Kornikova in a sports bra at Wimbledon.
17:39That's fantastic.
17:40I have a hard time with someone saying, gosh, she hasn't won a tournament, but she's getting all this notoriety
17:46because she's beautiful.
17:47Great, bring her in.
17:50In 2005, two years after her last WTA match, Kornikova was still earning upwards of $4 million from endorsements.
17:58She had won more fans than the biggest names in sports.
18:02She changed the way people looked at the game of tennis worldwide.
18:06At one point, her website got more hits than Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan combined.
18:14Prize money went up and sponsorship went up and attention went up because Anna Kornikova was out there.
18:21Give her a credit for that.
18:22You can't blame Anna Kornikova for never winning a WTA singles title because at the same time, she presided over
18:30unprecedented growth in women's tennis just by her presence on the court.
18:35She raised the profile, she made it relevant, she wanted us to know how good they were in addition to
18:41how they look.
18:42Vince Lombardi said winning isn't everything, it's the only thing.
18:46Vince didn't meet Anna Kornikova.
18:52Well, there you have it.
18:53The top five reasons Anna Kornikova shouldn't be blamed for never winning a WTA singles title.
18:59Hopefully, we've given you a new way to look at one of the most publicized tennis players of her generation.
19:03I'm Brian Kenney.
19:04Thanks for watching.
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