Kournikova has never won an event on the main WTA tour

Next week's ITF Women's Circuit event in Dothan, Alabama, is on the tour below the WTA circuit and is traditionally where players hoping to break through learn their trade.

Kournikova has not played at that level for seven years.

But after four first-round defeats in the five WTA tour events that she has played in this season, she has decided to take a step down in class.

Her drastic action mirrors that taken by Andre Agassi, who returned to the men's challenger circuit in 1998 with his game in tatters and ranked 141st in the world.

A year later he had won the French Open and has remained at the top of the sport ever since.

Kournikova, 21, has endured a miserable run since she burst onto the WTA Tour in 1997.

She reached the Wimbledon semi-finals that year but has yet to win a regular tour event, and the photogenic Russian's off-court sponsorship deals dwarf the figure she has earned playing tennis.

Kournikova was still ranked eighth in the world in in May 2001 but her form dipped and she is now down at 67.

Earlier this year, she suffered the heaviest Grand Slam defeat of her career when she was thrashed 6-0 6-1 by Belgian Justine Henin-Hardenne in the Australian Open second round.

Kournikova's participation in the 32-player event in Alabama depends upon her recovery from a thigh injury that caused her to pull out of a WTA event in South Carolina last week.