A Teenage Tennis Pro
While she moved overseas when she was barely a pre-teen, in her early teenage years she was already winning championships.
In 1996, at age 14, she was the winner of the International Tennis Federation Singles championship. In following years, she was the finalist for that same championship, as well as, won multiple championships in the Doubles competitions all over the world.
Winning championships and touring around to compete wasn’t the only milestone that Kournikova accomplished in her teen years, though.
Hitting Milestones
During her career as a professional tennis player, Anna Kournikova was the no. 8 player in the whole entire world in 2000 when it came to Singles – winning over half of her Singles tournaments throughout her lifetime. Talk about an impressive milestone at just 18!
However, she truly shined when she had a partner in crime by her side – especially in 1999, making it to the top at no. 1 with her partner Marina Hingis from Switzerland.
Even before that, in 1997, she became the second woman in all of tennis history to have made it to the semi-finals at the Open Era at the world-famous Wimbledon tournament.