Anna Kournikova body-shamed after showing off her post-baby bikini body on Instagram
In the 90s, legendary tennis champ Serena Williams made her pro debut, but the female tennis star everybody was talking about back then was Anna Kournikova.
Despite peaking at number eight in the world and having never won a singles Grand Slam title, the Russian athlete was one of the most sought after women on the planet at the time. So popular was she, Google searches for images of the tennis star in the early 2000s made her name one of the most common search strings.
Since retiring from tennis at the age of 21 after a series of injury complications, Kournikova had slowly faded into the background, but a recent post on her Instagram sadly lead some to body shame the former tennis star.
It all came after this video went up on the now 37-year-old's Instagram page. It's a very simple boomerang of the former athlete in a bikini, but some people felt the need to comment on her body.
"What happened to ur Muscular athletic body?? [sic]" said @denamarie6, and she was far from the only one. "Need some rice al frijoles mijita," added @gianni2581, while another commenter in @wowbambi68 compared her physique to that of a boy.
"You've lost so much fat and body mass you've got no chest and you've got the body of a boy and you're going to suffer for this when you get older with brittle bones."
But fortunately, some commenters leapt to the defence of the former tennis star, who also replaced Jillian Michaels as a trainer on the 12th season of the reality show The Biggest Loser back in 2011. "Alot [sic] of mean people don't have anything nice to say. I think you look healthy and lean," said @bordenann.
This sentiment was followed up by @neree85, who said: "This is nothing but a healthy body and she is freaking rocking it...stop being haters and spread the love." Then, @gorgeousborgesa said this:
"Anna, You look amazing, beautiful and healthy. Women need to learn how to build each other up and not tear each other down! Ladies, I’ll leave you with a quote I love: 'You can always tell who the strong women are. They're ones building other women up instead of tearing them down.'"
Kournikova, of course, had twins back in late 2017 with the pop singer Enrique Iglesias. She is notoriously secretive about her relationship status - as well as many aspects of her personal life - but TMZ were able to confirm that their son was called Nicholas and their daughter Lucy.
This article was originally published on VT.co