In the span of 15 minutes, she went from surprising everyone at a news conference with a show of introspection after her first-round loss at Wimbledon today to a display of divalike behavior in front of the BBC cameras.

Later, inside the BBC's booth, she went into a huff, standing up, ready to walk away when a harmless question about her confidence was raised.

"To be honest, if you ask behind the scenes and in the locker room, that was the real Anna Kournikova," Pam Shriver, an analyst for the BBC, said after witnessing Kournikova's behavior.

There was little sympathy for Kournikova, who has a history of petulant behavior in front of fans and with her peers. She is famous for once dismissing a teenage boy's shout of "I love you!" with a glare and the line: "You can't afford me."

At times, she has been given a pass because of all the scrutiny she is under. But other players have been under the microscope and handled it with more class. John Lloyd, also a BBC commentator, remembers when cameras dogged him when he was married to Chris Evert.

"Come on, you make millions," Lloyd said. "When you are at the top and making a lot of money, you will have successes and non-successes. You have to deal with it. Grow up."

By the end of the day, the consensus was the same: Harold Solomon has a lot of work on his hands. A month ago, Kournikova hired the no-nonsense Solomon to be her coach. Not one to put up with attitude, Solomon has been trying to strip away the hype, and funnel her attention into tennis and get her mind right on the big points.

Two years ago, he was the one who put Jennifer Capriati back on track, installing the hard-work approach she eventually used to fuel her resurgence.

"There are some similarities," Solomon said recently. "Anna is also playing in a fishbowl, but much more than most. It's her choice. This is the life she has chosen to lead."

Most everyone agrees that Kournikova has the talent to rebuild her career after a stress fracture in her left foot last year triggered her plummet from No. 8 in the world. But they also believe she needs to rearrange her priorities.

Kournikova, for one, thinks her attention on endorsement deals, worth a combined $10 million a year by some estimates, has not hampered her game.

"It's like 99 percent less of what everybody says that I do," said Kournikova, fielding questions after losing, 6-1, 4-6, 6-4, to 23rd-ranked Tatyana Panova of Russia. "There have been a lot of changes, in general, in my life in the last year, coming back after an injury, starting to play, all that stuff.

"Me, as a person, I'm thinking more about things, just about everything, the purpose of everything, just becoming my own person more, obviously learning things. I've had a lot of time to think when I wasn't playing. I think that changed me also."