It was a closed-stance type of game when she was brought up and

It was a closed-stance type of game when she was brought up, and then she started to play open-stanced on both sides, which depended on her footwork and her ability to move and her ability to go forward to the ball a little bit, so we’ve been working a lot in that area, and that’s a really tough adjustment to make when you’re starting to work with your feet.”"And when you don’t move for a year,” Kournikova interjected, emphasising that a stress fracture to her left foot had caused her to miss the majority of last season.Solomon picked up his theme again. “It’s easy to get lazy if you start hitting open-stanced on both sides,” he said. “You don’t have to move your feet in order to get your body in the right position for the ball. For the last four or five weeks, we’ve spent a lot of time just getting the feet in the right position and rekindling the thinking process of moving, moving, moving all the time.”Anna’s always going to be an aggressive tennis player I think that’s going to be her style of game It’s her nature She’s like an artist on the court more than somebody else.

She creates shots and creates openings, and for her to be aggressive is really dependent on her feet moving to the ball and being in the right position.” Your correspondent wondered if all this thinking through matches was a wise thing. After all, if you thought what you were doing while you were eating, you would probably poke your eye out with your fork (this was before we helped ourselves to the salad and pasta).”You’re right,” Kournikova said. “But the things we’re coming to now is the way I used to play three or four years ago. When I started to play lots and lots of tournaments, without having the off-season that other sports have, which allows you to go to a training camp for preparation, the more matches you play, your technique and everything gets a little bit out of place.”The things that we’re working on now, they’re basics, and they’re basically a lot of the things I used to do when I was younger, before I started to play so much So it’s not like I’m learning totally new things. I’m just going back to basics, basically.” She gave a little laugh at the unintentional pun.What first prompted her to pick up a racket at the age of five? “I didn’t pick up the racket,” she said, laughing, “my parents gave me the racket I had so much energy, just like now. I’m really over-hyper, huh? So my parents couldn’t handle me, and they figured that I should do something. When they started me with tennis, they just wanted me to exercise, to be healthy They never thought I was going to be professional.

I went twice a week to play with a little group, and then when I was seven I went for professional training every day at a club.”The club was in a forest, and I used to practise and play, and eat ice cream, and play, and go to the park and play It was great You didn’t think about anything except actually playing. It’s not like when I was 10 years old I said: ‘I’m going to be the most famous tennis player’ It’s not like that at all I didn’t even know you get paid to play. Now, of course, there’s thoughts of winning, how to get better, and all that.”Kournikova’s mother, Alla, who used to be a familiar figure on her daughter’s practice courts, appears to have taken a step into the background, leaving Solomon to do his work. “It’s more about myself getting involved,” Kournikova said, “more about me being responsible in general My parents were never my coaches. It’s not like Martina’s mom [Melanie Molitor], she is a professional coach.