TGIF With Anna Kournikova

Anna Kournikova was on the professional track, and everyone knew it. At 14, she become the youngest player ever to win a Fed Cup match and captured the European Championships and Italian Open juniors. At the close of 1995, she was ranked No. 1 and crowned as ITF Junior World Champion. She was ready to hit the professional circuit.

Shortly after turning 15, Anna burst onto the pro scene after much media fanfare by reaching the fourth round in her first Grand Slam tournament, the '96 U.S. Open, and the semifinals of her debut at Wimbledon in '97.

In the subsequent years, she has maintained a consistent presence in the top ten singles rankings and captured a Grand Slam doubles title with Martina Hingis at the '99 Australian Open. Most recently, she tore through the competition en route to a semifinal appearance at the 2001 Australian Open in Melbourne.

The 19-year-old Russian has beaten virtually every top player in the women's field and is the only player in the past 15 years to have defeated four consecutive top ten players in a single tournament, which she did on her way to the '98 final in Key Biscayne, Fla.

Perhaps the most heavily sponsored and marketed female athlete in sport today, Anna also ranks as one of the biggest draws on the entire tennis tour, commanding Standing-Room-Only crowds for her Grand Slam appearances and often selling out exhibitions from Mahwah, N.J. to Sao Paulo, Brazil.