A fun article on Tatiana Golovin in The Telegraph: Golovin hot stuff on and off court
And still Tatiana Golovin waits for some sort of response from Buckingham Palace. It was last summer that she informed Prince William through the morning prints that she wanted to look up from the Centre Court at Wimbledon and see him waving back at her from the Royal Box. "I'll be waiting for him," the would-be princess had purred.
This cheeky approach to the princes was typical of her. Golovin is no joyless tennis machine, more like a Frenchwoman who simply adores all the glitz, glamour, occasional hilarity and the hipster hotpants of being a tennis player.
She has already attracted plenty of attention for her flamboyant, at times risqué, wardrobe. Her version of demure in the Miami players' lounge was a blood-red top and low-slung, hot pink tracksuit bottoms. During her junior days she was known to take a pair of scissors to her skirts to make them more revealing.
Golovin's ice hockey coach father moved the family from Moscow to France when she was just eight months old. She speaks French as her first language, English as if she is in the smart set at an American high school, and Russian at home with her parents. She can be funny, feisty and disarming in all three languages; there is plenty of personality to go with the shots and the frocks.
Kournikova was instrumental in Golovin boarding at the Nick Bollettieri Academy in Florida from the age of seven. "Dad was watching a video of the players at Bollettieri and he saw Anna on it and said that we should definitely try it out with Bollettieri. So Anna was a big help with my tennis. And my parents and her parents became good friends when they met in Florida," Golovin said.
She seems genuinely thankful for what Kournikova has done for her. She has recently bought a luxury flat in Florida so will be able to go on more shopping trips with Kournikova, who has not played on the tour for close to two years and lives in Miami. Another inspiration has been Maria Sharapova, the Wimbledon champion and a contemporary from the Bollettieri days, "but we're not so much friends any more".
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