Real reason tennis ace Anna Kournikova ditched fame, kept twins secret and built 16ft wall round her Miami mansion
Real reason tennis ace Anna Kournikova ditched fame, kept twins secret and built 16ft wall round her Miami mansion
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BACK in the 1990s, you could hardly open a glossy mag without seeing tennis star Anna Kournikova’s athletic figure sprawled over the pages. Despite never reaching a final of a grand slam singles tournament, the Russian was in such demand she was the highest-earning female player in 2000.
![[Anna Kournikova modeling Adidas sportswear.]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/f3b8586b-da00-4915-8221-26c512efc198.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
One of her endorsements that year saw her in a sports bra on billboards next to the line “only the ball should bounce”. But since quitting the game in 2003, aged just 21, due to back problems, she has become something of a recluse, living behind 16ft walls at the beach-front mansion in Miami she shares with her pop star partner Enrique Iglesias and their three children.
![[Anna Kournikova in a wheelchair with a leg brace, walking with her family.]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/web-call-pricing-former-tennis-967190206_a3f98c.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
So it came as a shock to fans this week, to see Anna photographed in public for the first time in nearly three years. And it seems the 43-year-old has not shaken off the injuries that prevented her career on court reaching its full potential. Anna was spotted at Bal Harbour in Miami being pushed along in a wheelchair by family and friends, with her right foot clad in an orthopaedic boot.
![[Anna Kournikova and Enrique Iglesias with their three children.]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/anna-kournikova-819852543_8a6d9a.jpg?strip=all&w=640)
Smiling by her side were her two daughters, Lucy, seven, and five-year-old Mary. The image provided a brief window into the happiness that motherhood has brought the star, who also has Lucy’s twin brother Nicholas, since she turned her back on fame. It is a world away from her years as a teenage sensation when she once joked that “every country I visit, I have a different boyfriend and I kiss them all”, following rumours she was seeing two Russian ice hockey stars at the same time.
![[Martina Hingis playing tennis at Wimbledon.]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/7011b4a9-fbd4-44b0-8cd4-b33936551147.jpg?strip=all&w=851)
