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VH1 Driven: Anna Kournikova

Discussion in 'Other Sports' started by Kam, Aug 27, 2003.

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  1. Kam

    Kam Contributing Member

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    VH1 is going to have a Driven thing on Anna Kournikova.

    It will come on at 8pm central time zone on Sunday. Just a heads up.




    Also, tommorow is her debut on the USA network. I think she is going to do analytical work for them for the US Open.




    What pisses me off the most is that I wished they did this like two or three years ago, and not now. That is what pisses me off about all these networks and **** like that.
     
  2. IROC it

    IROC it Contributing Member

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    Why? Was she hotter then? Or do you think she'd have actually WON a tournament with some MORE publicity?:p
     
  3. Kam

    Kam Contributing Member

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    not exactly.


    It's cause she was playing tennis pretty well (decent) then.

    Maybe people would talk about her game more than her off the court crap.


    I don't know if that makes sense.
     
  4. Dr of Dunk

    Dr of Dunk Clutch Crew

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    I was watching CNBC I think last week and she appeared with Jeff Bezos (CEO of Amazon) and said something about she's selling bras for them. Seemed rather dingy. Bezos seemed pretty desperate, too. Pretty odd interview with those 2 next to each other. I don't think Anna knew who Jeff was or how much he was worth... :D
     
  5. YoYao

    YoYao Member

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    Driven, I love that name :)
    can anyone come up with a picture of kam siting there as ususal and dreaming about Anna? :D
     
  6. Preston27

    Preston27 Contributing Member

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    And no pictures here? Bah.
     
  7. BigM

    BigM Contributing Member

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    following up on that and to appease griffinfan,

    meet the "Anna Kournikova Impact Level 3 Multiway Shock Absorber Bra" :


    [​IMG]

    amazon has a couple other pics too.
     
  8. GreenVegan76

    GreenVegan76 Contributing Member

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    Whoa, whoa, whoa. She plays tennis?

    :p
     
  9. Rockets2K

    Rockets2K Clutch Crew

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    [​IMG]
     
  10. Manny Ramirez

    Manny Ramirez The Music Man

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    Kournikova is not only the most overrated tennis player of all-time, she is also one of the most overrated "hot chick" of all-time. Sorry, Kam.:(
     
  11. HOOP-T

    HOOP-T Member

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    I really don't agree with either. Check her doubles record and her prize money. She's had a very successful doubles career, although it's been totally overshadowed ber her lackluster performance in singles. But as with any oklayer that bursts onto the scene with immediate success in singles - huge expectations are placed on them.

    As for her being overrated as a hottie, my eyes say different.
     
  12. Manny Ramirez

    Manny Ramirez The Music Man

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    HOOP,

    Don't get me wrong...I think she is nice-looking, but I feel that there are quite a few women out there who are better but don't get the publicity that Anna gets (pub in being a "hot chick"). I blame it on Sportscenter as they used to always talk about her even though she never won a singles tournament.
     
  13. HOOP-T

    HOOP-T Member

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    OK OK.....you're right about that. But ESPN understands that Anna is popular not because she's a great singles player, but because she plays tennis, and is hot. So why not give her airtime? Marketing!!!!
     
  14. rrj_gamz

    rrj_gamz Contributing Member

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    I still think she is so hot...

    I don't care if she can't play tennis...She is so hot...
     
  15. drapg

    drapg Member

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    She has the most amazing stomach I've ever seen.

    Good read courtesy of ESPN Page 2 about Anna. It even mentions DoD's statement about the Amazon.com CEO.


    Don't hate her because she's beautiful
    By Stacey Pressman
    Special to Page 2



    I've stooped to a new low. I'm not afraid to admit it.

    I just spent spent two days of my life stalking Anna Kournikova. Well, "stalking" might be too harsh. Let's just say I made sure to position myself in her presence. Luckily for me, Yom Kippur is right around the corner, because I'm sure God is waiting for my atonement.

    Yeah, I know. Pathetic.

    But I had to. She was coming to NYC and I had to see what Anna-mania was all about. I needed to check her out in person. Watch her interact with others. Judge her for myself. See if she's worth all this hoopla.

    And I'm here now to confirm the obvious.

    She is.

    Like you, I've read the press clippings, heard the private she's-a-monster "Annacdotes," watched the "E! True Hollywood Story" about what a snotty little over-hyped diva she is. I've heard the talk on the women's tour that Anna is a side show and a circus act and that she has never won a singles event. That in the end, endorsements should be "win" deep rather than "skin" deep for female athletes.

    Puh-leeeeezz. I've always been somewhat sympathetic to "Anna-conda." These nay-sayers, mainly feminists and the politically correct, are clearly hostile to the fact that it's human nature to revel in beauty and aesthetics. Besides, it's not like we just gave Claudia Schiffer a tennis racquet. Anna has made more than $3 million in career prize money. She has been ranked as high as No. 8 in singles and has won 18 doubles titles, including two grand slams. Those are hardly signs of an athletic failure. But let's continue to beat Anna up. After all, she's pretty, and we all know that pretty girls need to suffer.

    She was going to be in New York City at a video-game store on 33rd and Broadway, shooting promotional footage for XSN Sports, Xbox's new line of video games. So I checked it out.

    (Want further proof of the video game cover curse that claimed Mike Vick a few weeks back? Kournikova and Pete Sampras -- one injured and the other retired -- grace the cover of Microsoft's new tennis game. Not to mention, as I was in the store waiting for Anna I got a buzz on my pager which sent me news that Chargers running back LaDanian Tomlinson had left practice with an injured heel. Of course, I immediately looked up and saw his mug on a huge poster promoting Sony 989's NFL Gameday 2004. Yikes!)

    There I was in a video-game store worried about LT's injury and waiting for Kournikova to arrive. I was definitely having a Greg Brady, Hawaiian-tiki-idol moment.

    The Microsoft people were frantically making sure that when Anna pushed a big red button, a curtain would drop and the game would be unveiled behind her. It was imperative that they get this to work, since that was really the point of her being there. Those boys were slaving away.

    Ryan, the go-to-person responsible for making sure everything went smoothly, was pacing. He thought for sure she would be late and uncooperative. He even asked me to count the number of times she'd say "No" to his requests.

    The expectation in the store? They were preparing to deal with a super-hot vapid celebrity twit.

    My purpose for being there? To observe a super-hot vapid celebrity twit.

    Ryan's cell phone rang at 4:36 p.m. It was Anna's driver. Ms. Kournikova was four blocks away.

    Wow. Four blocks away and 24 minutes early. How un-Diva-like!

    The black GMC Denali pulled up in front of the store; and without much of a red-carpet fuss Ms. Kournikova entered in a tight, pink adidas half-shirt which revealed her amazingly flawless figure. Her signature long blond locks were down and flowing. A size-4 waist and a Brazilian bikini wax were the only conceivable solutions to the riddle about how she could wear her grey hot pants so low. And a can opener would be the only way to get them off.

    There was no entourage -- just Anna and her agent.

    Kournikova is stunning. There is no question about that. Maybe she was wearing a little too much makeup -- a girl that beautiful shouldn't need an ounce. But, then, she was making television appearances all day, and who knows how many makeup artists had dusted her cheeks. And I overheard a guy say she smelled like a stripper. (I had to ask him exactly what a stripper smells like. He reassured me he didn't mean it in a dirty, skanky way, but rather in a wearing-too-much-body-spray type of way.)

    When she arrived, Anna immediately kissed most of the guys involved in the product launch. Two kisses each, European-style. She was by no means shy or standoff-ish. When she finished her meet-and-greet, she went to the curtain to unveil the video game. She was standing by the big red button -- the big moment. You could sense the if-this-doesn't-work-I'm screwed angst emanating from the set designer.

    About to take her cue, Anna suddenly belted out, "How funny if this doesn't work? You sure it's gonna work?" She was joking, teasing the poor Microsoft underlings.

    Not to worry. It worked.

    Then came two on-camera sound bites. She was telling the camera, or trying to, how great XSN Sports is for Xbox. Between her accent and the fact that those words are a Cindy-Brady-stuttering mouthful, she screwed it up about 10 times.

    Finally, after a little self-deprecation and a lot of sticking out her tongue in disgust with herself, she finally made it through.

    Anna was holding a football video game, so I asked her if she likes football. Her face lit up.

    "Oh, yeah, I do," she said.

    I asked her what her favorite team is.

    "Definitely the Kansas City Chiefs."

    An oddball choice. "Why the Chiefs?"

    "I met, like, 10 of them a few weeks ago, We did some exhibition thing and they were all really fun. I want them to do well."

    This all made sense after realizing she plays World Team Tennis in Kansas City.

    She looked at me with a silly, yet inquisitive, grin and said, "Oh, and wait. Who's that one guy?"

    Hmmm. I thought to myself. Who's that one guy? Gee, this is a tough one. Deductive reasoning, logic, rocket science and Confucius say ...

    "Uhh, Tony Gonzalez?"

    I said it like a catty teenage girl standing in front of a high-school locker.

    Anna furrowed her brow and shook her head as if the name wasn't registering, and then shrugged her shoulders.

    Now, I certainly am not in any position to make overarching assessments of Anna Kournikova's character based on one hour. But my time with her belied her reputation and my preconceived notions.

    She isn't always a diva. She was punctual, agreeable and arrived with no entourage.

    She's engaging and friendly. She kissed everyone hello and goodbye.

    She's self-deprecating and funny.

    She's a sports fan. We knew about hockey. Now I know about football.

    And she's human, just like the rest of us girls. I pulled the Kansas City Star clips about her appearance with the Chiefs. No. 88 is mentioned.

    When she left, the people still in the store appeared to be as stunned as I was. I reminded Ryan exactly how many times Anna had said "No."

    The Diva tally: Zero.

    I expected the Wicked Witch of the West. I saw Glinda, the Good Witch of the North.

    Maybe I just saw her on a good day. Maybe she was so nice because she didn't know she was talking to a writer. She had no idea who I was, nor did she know I was planning to write anything about her. But her friendly vibe made it easy to engage.

    I also met her in an environment far removed from the pack journalism with which she regularly deals, and which no doubt can put anyone on the defensive.

    Let me briefly take you to day No. 2 of my Anna-pa-looza Tour: Shock Absorber Bra Launch, Grand Central Station, New York City.

    Anna made an appearance with Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos, who clumsily introduced the lovely Ms. Kournikova as if he was a rented birthday clown speaking to a group of 8-year-olds. This audience clearly was more interested in riding the ponies than his insipid balloon-making.

    After his Bezos-the-Clown routine, Mr. Amazon flawlessly morphed into Kevin Spacey from "American Beauty," lusting after his daughter's best friend. I get embarrassed for people very easily. His antics were creeping me out.


    My sole objective at this Grand Central media circus was simply to see if Anna recognized me 14 hours later. For me, that would have been a true sign of character.

    But the experiment proved futile. The crowd was too large and overwhelming. Cameramen practically came to blows over lens space. People pushed and shoved each other just to catch a glimpse. Because of my lack of height, I do not fare well in these Times-Square-on-New-Years-Eve situations. I always end up like Jeff Van Gundy at the bottom of a bench-clearing melee.

    I couldn't deal. Not to mention, I was wilting in the heat. I backed off and positioned myself away from the crowd, but close enough to hear the questions the media had for Anna.

    It was here that I caught a glimpse of the she-might-be-a-monster reputation, or -- in the WTA colloquial -- her "Anna-tude."

    But in fairness, how many times should she have to answer these questions?

    "Hey, Anna, how does it feel to have all this media attention when you're not a proven winner?"

    "Hey, Anna, do you think your babe-dom takes away from your tennis?"

    Those are always the questions.

    You see in her body language that these questions clearly agitate. She answers curtly, with a coquettish smile. Yes, it comes across as fake, snotty and stuck-up. And, hey, she very well could be all of those things.

    But it's clear that Anna has a sexual persona and moxie that feeds her success and, in turn, vexes most feminists and the politically correct.

    As a woman working in a male-dominated industry, I've come to realize it's in a man's nature to evaluate and sexualize a woman's persona before he gets to the more important matters of the day: intelligence, aptitude, athletic ability, sense of humor, what's for lunch, etc.

    Rather than fight it, we women need to accept it and deal with it. Beauty is not a male-created invention designed to shackle, oppress and hold us back, as I heard over and over in my fancy-schmancy waste-of-time women's studies classes back in college.

    Anna, to me, is what today's feminism should really be about: a woman wielding confidence, beauty, femininity, athleticism and intelligence to cultivate a multi-million dollar empire, which in the end ultimately benefits women, women's sports and gender equality.

    I recognize I am whipping out the world's smallest violin for a multi-millionaire athlete. But it would behoove us as women to celebrate, promote and rejoice in Anna Kournikova's accomplishments, both on and off the court, rather than resort to petty sniping about her lack of a singles title.

    Drop the Anna-mosity. She should be embraced.
     
  16. DCkid

    DCkid Contributing Member

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    That's a great article. "Anna hating" has always been about nothing more than jealousy.
     
  17. Rocketman95

    Rocketman95 Hangout Boy

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    That's incorrect. You know that Trader_johntexxx was dreaming about me.
     
  18. Rockets2K

    Rockets2K Clutch Crew

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    I figured that since you were there..he didnt have to dream about you...and since his favorite subjects are himself and strippers...

    well..anyway.;)
     
  19. pgabriel

    pgabriel Educated Negro

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    What's Kam holding while thinking of Anna?

    I guess he didn't win a contest.
     
  20. Kam

    Kam Contributing Member

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    I will admit. There are hotter chicks than anna.



    BUT. It's not just about looks. Anna is the total package.

    She has game, she has that attitude, she still looks good.


    She has that I am better than you, you can never have me Kam.


    It's the I am a Menu, you can look, but you can't afford.


    If you're a cubs fan or a bosox fan, I think you should understand what I mean. They want a World Series Title bad, but every year, you know you're not going to win it.
    But yet, people still roll out to Fenway, and Wrigley.
     

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