Stephen Bierley Tennis
The last thing Anna Kournikova, the Madonna of the world’s tennis courts, ever seemed likely to suffer from was a crisis of confidence.
The 17-year-old Muscovite, who when not on the road lives most of her high- dollar life in the sunshine state of Florida, has been the epitome of audacity and sass ever since International Management Group snapped her up as a 10-year-old and set her fast on the track to sporting stardom.
“Anna knows everything, and what she doesn’t know, she thinks she does,” said Nick Bollettieri, her former coach and mentor.
But what she clearly does not know is how to stop serving double faults. The attack began towards the end of last year in Moscow and has now become her personal plague.
In the second round of the Australian Open, arguably the least pressured of the four Grand Slams, Little Miss Iceberg defeated Japan’s Miho Saeki 1- 6, 6-4, 10-8, but in the process served another 31 double faults, an extraordinary tally. This brought the total to an incredible 147 in her past seven singles matches.
“Look,” she said, tossing her blond plait and flashing her blue eyes, “it’s not like a huge problem. It’s half mental and half technical. If somebody has a problem with their forehand, nobody notices. But when you make a double fault, then everybody talks about it. But it’s just like another shot.”
A plausible effort at explanation, but (as everybody who has seen her play in Melbourne knows only too well) a load of dingo’s kidneys.
Kournikova has the yips, with more double faults to her name than there are double entendres in a Carry On film. Remember when Bernard Langer five-putted at Lytham in the British Open? Remember how snooker’s Patsy Fagan became a gibbering wreck whenever he placed a rest on the table? Kournikova has joined the yippie-yippie shake club.
Her problem may not be terminal for her tennis career, but if the double faults persist in such numbers – or even if they are reduced by a quarter or less – she is unlikely to win a World Tennis Association Tour title, let alone a Grand Slam.
Last year Kournikova parted company with International Management Group on the grounds that she wanted to concentrate more on her tennis and less on her off- court activities.
Last week, having defeated the persistent but limited Saeki, she sank into her chair and covered her face in a white towel, no doubt wonder what on Earth was going on in her young life. And why.
“Sport is like the theatre. People like to see good-looking people who are dressed up properly,” Kournikova has said, adding: “But I would not be here if I couldn’t play.”
There is no doubting that, even if she is yet to win a senior title. In 1997 she reached the semi-finals at Wimbledon, and last year was runner-up to Venus Williams in the Lipton Championships at Key Biscayne, Florida, sometimes known, however spuriously, as the “fifth Grand Slam”.
She is ranked number 13 in the world and seeded number 12 for the Australian Open. Before last year’s tournament in Moscow, when the double-fault trouble began, few questioned her ability to win major titles in the future, assuming her desire for success on the court was not outweighed by her desire for fame and fortune off it.
Kournikova has a fine all-round game with an ability to attack the net or stay back. Before this current crop of glitches, her serve was fluent and rhythmic – nothing like as powerful as Lindsay Davenport, the world’s number one, but considerably more penetrating than the serve of Martina Hingis, Davenport’s predecessor.
Neither Kournikova nor her coach, Pavel Slozil, has an adequate explanation for the problem.
She damaged ligaments in her right thumb at Eastbourne last year when defeating Germany’s Steffi Graf and was forced to withdraw from Wimbledon. This may have caused her to change her service grip marginally, although in practice Kournikova, one of People magazine’s “50 most beautiful people” last year, has no problems.
l Kournikova is playing in the Australian Open women’s doubles with Hingis this weekend.