Anna Kournikova has been highly criticised for her failure to win a singles title in her career, and the fact that she is more famous for her off-court activities than she was for her on-court performance.

Yet a closer examination of Kournikova's career reveals that this criticism is quite unfair. First of all, the point should be made that Kournikova had to stop playing at barely 22 due to injury. Who knows what she could have achieved had this not happened.

Similarly, it was largely injury that was responsible for her descent down the rankings. Indeed some of Kournikova's best breakthrough opportunities were hindered by her injury problems. For instance, in 1998 she was in great form for Wimbledon having beaten Steffi Graf  (no stranger to grass with seven Wimbledon titles)  at Eastbourne, but was sadly injured.

'Despite her failure to win a career singles title - which does admittedly look bad on her tennis CV - Kournikova was still a rather good, if not great, player'


Despite her failure to win a career singles title - which does admittedly look bad on her tennis CV - Kournikova was still a rather good, if not great, player.

She burst on to the scene in 1996 aged just 15 and, unlike Martina Hingis who scraped through the age eligibility rule's restrictions, the number of tournaments that Kournikova could play was limited.

She reached the semi-finals of Wimbledon at barely turned 16, beating the reigning French Open champion in the quarter-finals. This fine achievement is overlooked by the fact that the player who soundly beat her in the semi-finals was the great Martina Hingis, who went onto win the tournament, also aged just 16.

It seems that Kournikova's off-court fame detracts critics from examining her tennis performance more fairly.

The Russian also reached the quarter-finals of the Australian Open and was a career high No 8 in the singles rankings. In addition she won two Grand Slam doubles titles. She has also beaten players of the calibre of Steffi Graf, Lindsay Daveport and Hingis. So Kournikova's game must be of some merit for her to have accomplished all this.

Although she never actually won a tournament, she reached the finals of two major tournaments - Miami and Hilton Head - losing only to two former world No 1s and multiple Grand Slam champions - Venus Williams and Hingis respectively. She also was runner-up in Moscow - losing again to Hingis - and at the China Open, where she lost to Smashnova.

Although Kournikova lacks the Grand Slam singles titles of a Maria Sharapova, an Anastasia Myskina or a Svetlana Kuznetsova, it can be argued that Kournikova's on-court success paved the way for the breakthrough by her fellow Russians this decade.