Anna Kournikova: Nick 一手培养出来的明星 (图)

Anna Kournikova was born on 7 June 1981 in Moscow, Russia.
At the age of 7, her father began teaching her how to play tennis.

Anna Kournikova 从8岁开始在Bollettieri's 训练，是Nick唯一手把手从小教出来的。 

A Lesson in hype - tennis player Anna Kournikova

Sporting News, The, Feb 6, 1995 by Pat Jordan

A story I read last fall called her one of the best 12-year-old tennis players in her adopted country, the USA, her native country, Russia, and possibly the world. The story claimed that she was the heavy favorite to win the girls' 18-year-old division of the Rolex Orange Bowl International Tennis Championships in Miami Beach. I had been waiting for her name to pop up on the international tennis scene ever since I first saw her play a little more than two years ago.

Two years ago, she was a tiny, blond child whacking tennis balls with a racquet almost her size in the bright sunshine at Nick Bollettieri's tennis camp in Bradenton, Fla. Anna Kournikova had long blond hair like corn silk tied in a ponytail that fell down her back. She was a pretty little girl with a perfect tan in a white tennis dress. She looked like a proficient tennis player in her dress and tennis sneaks. She had all the moves of a proficient tennis player twice her age. But they were stylized moves, taught moves, with nothing instinctive about them that exhibited real talent. She reminded me of all those Little League boys in their miniature major league uniforms worn just so. Boys who had absorbed all the big league mannerisms from television. How to tap the imaginary dirt off their spikes with their bat as they stepped into the batter's box. Boys who knew how to toe the pitching rubber and glare in, steely eyed beyond their years, at the batter. Boys, who, despite all the mimicked mannerisms, had no real talent for the game.

Anna had all the shots, but they lacked zing. Standing on the sideline, watching her, Bollettieri said the strength would come with age. She was only a little girl, he said. She was only 12. But she was already a star even if she hadn't been in a single tournament. She was Bollettieri's prize pupil, after, of course, Andre Agassi and Mary Pierce, two of Bollettieri's major reclamation projects. She had already had an article written about her as a tennis prodigy in The New York Times. She was represented by the prestigious International Management Group. She had even signed a million-dollar endorsement contract with tennis outfitters. She even had a story to tell.

The little blond girl shagging beat up tennis balls at a playground in Russia. The IMG agent spotting her the way Hollywood talent agents always claimed they spotted starlets on drugstore stools at Schwab's. So they signed her up, brought her and her mother to America, and ensconced her at Bollettieri's tennis camp. Her mother was here with her now and, in fact, never strayed far from her daughter.

Alla Kournikova was a slack-looking blonde with heavy makeup. She refused to talk about her daughter, or their past, except to say that Anna's father was a former Olympic athlete, but in what sport, she refused to volunteer. She brushed off all questions about the father -- why he wasn't here at Bollettieri's, too -- and just settled in, glumly, to watch her daughter practice. Alla watched through Oakley sunglasses, those hightech, Darth Vadarish glasses that are a trademark of everyone at Bollettieri's camp.

Anna swung with all her strength at a passing shot, and let out a shrill cry, "Aaaaiiieee!" In fact, Anna let out that cry even when she hit a drop shot. It was already her trademark, Bollettieri said. Imagine, I thought, a little girl who hasn't won anything and already she's got an agent, sponsors, an attention-grabbing style ("Aaaaiiieee") and a famous coach.

Bollettieri has come a long way from the Korean War paratrooper he once was who used to earn spare change teaching his fellow troopers how to hit a tennis ball. He has manufactured a career as a pro coach, which has something to do with his coaching ability, a lot to do with his abilities as a cheerleader and ego-pumper, and even more to do with a man who is a master at hype. Nick knows how to hyep his students to the media, and little Anna was a perfect example. She was cute, blond, foreign, with all the moves, even if they were stylized. I had seen such athletes before. Athletes who are easy to teach even before. Athletes who are easy to teach even before they exhibit talent. The kid pitcher who learns immediately how to get the proper spin on a curveball. The kid batter who learns immediately how to turn over his wrists on a swing of the bat. But somehow, those kids never developed, they never got the strength and talent to go with their well-practiced moves. The perfect spin on the curveball would always result in a big, slow, sloppy deuce that was easy to hit. It never became that sharp-breaking curve that fell like a shot duck a foot from the plate. And the kid with the perfect swing, his best shot would always be a flyball to straight-away center field, or a groundball single over second base.

But Anna was different, Nick said. She was only a child, 12 years old. Once she grew into her strength, all of her practiced shots would then explode in a fury that would dominate the tennis world. So I waited for over the next two years to hear from little Anna Kournikova. And finally, last December, I did. She advanced quickly through the ranks of other 18-year-olds until she made the final. She would play against an 18-year-old Spaniard named Marian Ramon. Ramon demolished the little Russian girl, whom a newspaper billed "a future princess of tennis," in straight sets, 7-5, 6-4. The newspaper described Ramon's game as "more mature, powerful" compared to little Anna's game of "high-rise floaters." It seems that Ramon would take these "high-rise floaters" and "rocket forehand ground-strokes deep into the corner, flustering the young star and setting up overhead smashes."