| abstract | - Born in the small village of Shyeshot, near Moscow, the ridiculously good looking Kournikova attracted attention from a very young age. In the months after her birth, many local mothers attempted to swap their babies for young Anna, as their babies were so ugly in comparison. Upon the discovery of the obvious heists (as the abandoned babies were clearly not as cute or cuddly as little Anna), the mothers would often burst into tears and curse the faces of their ghastly offspring. Increased security meant that Anna was a lonely child. She was later bullied at school and called "prettyface". Anna's parents later capitalised on their daughter's appearance by marketing her as a tourist attraction, a common practice in Russia. People came from as far afield as Moscow to ogle at the fabled beauty, who would stay in a glass room specially built for her and was periodically made to dance to Wham's Wake Me Up Before You Go Go. Her family made a lot of money from selling merchandise, including "I saw Anna dance and all I got was this lousy T-shirt" shirts and those little Russian dolls that open up and contain vodka inside. Throughout her lonely teen years, Kournikova would keep herself occupied by playing tennis against a wall. At the time this would annoy her father, Sergei. "I very disappoint in my daughter," he said in his broken English (which was odd considering that it was his first language), "she could make us good money as prostitute, but all she want do is hit tennis ball". Ironically, this apparent fault would propel Kournikova to stardom. One day, the Kournikova beauty zoo had a famous visitor in Martina Navratilova. Navratilova suggested that Kournikova came back to Florida with her and attend Nick Bollettierri's tennis academy. Navratilova was shocked to later find out that Kournikova was a good tennis player.
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