Kournikova Loses Cool in Bbc Interview

Anna Kournikova showed the strain of her continuing decline in form last night when she threatened to walk out of a BBC interview after being asked an apparently innocuous question.

In the pre-recorded interview, which was broadcast as live on BBC2 shortly after 7.30pm, Kournikova reacted petulantly when the interviewer Garry Richardson asked her whether her confidence was low after her first- round defeat by her fellow Russian Tatiana Panova.

When questioned by Richardson she stood up, disappeared from view and asked if the interview could be restarted before resuming her seat and saying: "You're asking a question and then you're saying my confidence is low so you're answering it. Who are you to say my confidence is low?"

In the brief but tense exchange that followed, Kournikova, 21, insisted that her off-court commit ments were not affecting her form. "No, I don't think it detracts from my tennis," she said.

Garry Richardson: "Chris Evert, who knows about tennis and I don't, has said that Andre Agassi stepped down [to challenger tournaments] and that helped him. Is that something that you might do?"

AK [stands up]: "Can we try this again?" [To Raquel Martin, head of media relations at the WTA] "Am I talking about this match or what am I talking about?

RM to GR: "You're being a bit ... "

AK sits down.

GR: "You lost here today, can you sum up your day?"

AK: "I think you summed it up. I lost."

GR: "What would you think would be a good opening question?"

A spokesman for the BBC defended the decision to run the interview as live later: "We took an editorial decision. We thought it was good journalism."