Before there was Sharapova, there was Kournikova. For about a year, we, the media, made the mistake of bringing this up to Maria when interviewing her, but she eventually beat it out of us. Here, Anna, still not officially retired from tennis, came to Newport Beach as part of the visiting World Team Tennis (WTT) squad and got the atention she was used to.
I did a great interview with Rafter before his WTT macth in Newport Beach. Such a nice guy! He once corrected the judge who screwed up the line call and gave him an undeserved point. He lost the match and says he has mixed feelings about that correction, but doesn't see how he could have not done it. People still talk about it. Sampras won 762 matches, including 12 against Rafter, but who wants to talk about him?