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Originally Posted by pdoug20 I don't know if I would equate her to Anna Kournikova outside of looks because at least Kournikova has played her sport more than once, albeit quite terribly... |
This statement (and similar ones over the years) irks me to no end.
You don't get ranked #8 in the world by playing "terribly." You don't get to the semi-finals of Wimbledon by playing "terribly." You don't get to be ranked #1 in doubles by playing "terribly."
So Kournikova never won a major pro singles tournament. So what? She was still a phenomenally good player. Who happened to be pretty hot. So she got alot of press for being hot. Again, so what? She actually got that press because she was a pretty damn good tennis player. Watch the early rounds of a major (or even the middle rounds of just a regular tournament) and you'll see that there are ALOT of hot players (both female & male) on the ATP tour. Do any of them really get any media hype until the break into the upper rankings? No.
Did Kournikova lose focus on tennis due to her media stardom? Maybe. Or maybe she simply didn't have the skills to be better than the #8 ranked female player IN THE WORLD. Regardless, that's nothing to sneeze at.
To say that she was a "terrible" player is just misguided and ignorant.
D