The former tennis star, who retired in 2001, has kept a very low profile in recent years
Kournikova has kept out of the spotlight in recent years(Image: Gary Miller/FilmMagic)
Former tennis star Anna Kournikova has announced she has become a mother again at 44, after welcoming a fourth child with popstar partner Enrique Iglesias .
The two-time Australian Open doubles champion, who was the poster girl of her sport during the late 1990s and early 2000s, made the announcement on social media on Monday night, having given birth five days earlier. She has not revealed whether the baby is a boy or a girl, but shared a photo of the newborn with her nearly two million Instagram followers, captioning the post: “My Sunshine 12.17.2025.”
Kournikova has been in a long-term relationship with Spanish singer Enrique Iglesias since 2001, when she appeared as his love interest in the music video for his hit single ‘Escape.’
While they have never married, the couple already had three children together before welcoming their new arrival, with twins Nicholas and Lucy born in 2017 before sister Mary arrived in 2020.
The happy news comes after Kournikova was spotted in public for the first time in more than two years, as she was photographed in a wheelchair outside a Miami shopping centre at the end of January.
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While she has done some charity and TV work, the Russian star has kept a very low profile since retiring from tennis, largely disappearing from public life and keeping her personal life and relationships out of the spotlight.
That is despite her being one of the most famous women in the world at the height of her fame, when she was rarely off catwalks and the front of magazines like FHM and Sports Illustrated.
Kournikova’s model looks and celebrity status even saw her become the most searched-for athlete in the early days of Google, while she was also cast for a minor role in the 2000 cult comedy Me, Myself and Irene alongside Hollywood stars Jim Carrey and Renee Zellweger.
Tennis icon Anna Kournikova(Image: Instagram/Anna Kournikova)
She was even voted the world’s sexiest woman in 2002, beating the likes of Britney Spears and Jennifer Lopez to the accolade, while her net worth today is still estimated to be in the region of $60 million (£47.5m) according to Celebrity Net Worth.
However, despite her fame, Kournikova’s tennis career was all over by the age of 21 as she suffered serious back and spinal problems, including a herniated disc.
She had turned professional aged just 14, making it through to the fourth round of the US Open just one year later, before making it to the semi-finals of Wimbledon the following summer, marking her best-ever run in singles competition.
It was in doubles where she became a household name, however, as she quickly became number one in the world alongside partner Martina Hingis, with the duo dubbed the ‘Spice Girls of tennis’.
As well as twice reaching the quarter-finals and semi-finals of the US Open and Wimbledon respectively, Kournikova was also a runner-up in the 1999 French Open doubles event – but finally triumphed alongside Hingis at the Australian Open in 1999 and 2002.
But while her global profile continued to soar, it all started to go wrong at the turn of the millennium as she began to suffer repeated injury problems, with a stress fracture in her left foot forcing her to withdraw from 12 tournaments as she plummeted down the rankings.
Further issues with her adductor and back saw Kournikova fall out of the world’s top 300 players at the end of 2003, leading her to retire at the age of 21. Opening up about having her career cut short in a 2011 interview with People, she admitted it was “scary as hell” to give up tennis but couldn’t face the “excruciating” pain she suffered any longer.
“My back really forced me to stop,” she said. “It got so bad; I couldn’t tie my shoes, literally. I would be in excruciating pain. I had been doing six to eight hours [of training] every day since I was five years old.
“It was very interesting to me to stop playing and to figure out, ‘Who am I without tennis?’ It was very difficult and scary as hell.”
Kournikova did return to the court years later, however, as she reunited with Hingis in 2010 to play competitive tennis for the first time since her retirement at the Invitational Ladies’ Doubles event at Wimbledon.