Wake Up Call: Hold it, you mean that I missed Anna Kournikova’s birthday?

Jun 8, 2011, 9:00 AM EDT

According to Wikipedia, Anna Kournikova turned 30 on Tuesday, which makes me very sad. That’s because (a.) I’m a day late with my happy birthday wishes, and (b.) Anna Kournikova is 30. The big 3-0. It seems like it was just yesterday when she turned 18, breaking into the WTA’s top-20 rankings for the first time with a third-round loss to World No. 1 Martina Hingis in the 1998 Australian Open. It was an historic breakthrough: the hottest women’s tennis player was also going to be the greatest women’s tennis player.

But it was not to be. Kournikova never climbed higher than No. 8 worldwide, and never won a WTA singles title. She hasn’t played on the WTA Tour since 2003, and last played competitively in 2010 at the Invitational Ladies Doubles event at Wimbledon, where she teamed with Hingis. But still, what would women’s tennis be without Anna Kournikova? She’s been a staple around here, that’s for sure. One of the first columns I ever wrote for NBC was on her Sports Illustrated cover from 2000.

In honor of the most-searched person in the history of Google (according to my research), here’s a photo gallery of the best 30 shots of Anna, brought to you by the folks at Busted Coverage.