The Overlooked Career of Anna Chakvetadze

The Russian Anna in tennis who gets the most attention is Anna Kournikova, but there is another Anna from Russia whose tennis is on the same level, whose looks are more than pleasant, and whose story is more inspiring. Anna Chakvetadze has been a strong presence on the tennis season these past few years, and worked through much adversity during her childhood to make the pro circuit.

Spending a few years earlier this decade to make an impact on the pro scene, Chakvetadze finally came into her own in 2006. Having won tournaments at Moscow and in China at the end of the year, Chakvetadze made an impact while remaining close with her family at the same time.

Having your family nearby can be a great thing for such a young talent, especially when the tour can be so demanding with travel and photo shoots.

Anna is not afraid of her beauty and as you can tell by the pictures; her personality is front and center. She likes sports cars, the faster the better and has her own collection to prove it Anna was on top of the world during the tennis season in 2007. Her return of serve was considered among the best in the game. Her ability to switch from defense to offense helped her elevate her game to #5 in the world. She reached the semifinals of the US Open and the Year Ending Championships. In all she had wins over both Williams sisters and Jelena Jankovic to go with 4 more titles in her collection.

A horrible event occurred just a few short months later, right when it looked like things couldn’t get much better for Chakvetadze. During the off-season in December 2007, Chakvetadze was at her home in Russia, which was intruded upon by burglars. They tied her up and threatened her with a gun, severely beat her father, and stole over $300,000 in jewelry and other things from Chakvetadze’s house. Needless to say, she was very shaken up.

As a result, the 2008 tennis season was very difficult for Chakvetadze. She did her best to return her focus to her tennis career, but struggled in her tournaments, as her number five ranking steadily dropped.

In 2009, Chakvetadze is still fighting as hard as she can to restore her spirit and bring herself back to her previous state. While this will be a difficult task to say the least, the New York crowd at the US Open is well aware of her struggles, and will be behind her in its desire to see her return to her 2007 form.

No matter how she does from here, all she can do is fight. Having been a fighter all of her life, there’s no doubt that she’ll continue to do so.