The Petite Piranha

After just a handful events, Kostanian is already known as a fierce competitor on the Classic Tour. (Photo by Anne Craig-WPBA)

Remember the wonderful Tom Hanks' movie "Big" back in 1988? It was a fantastic tale about a boy who made a simple, crazy, and desperate wish: to go quickly from a puny adolescent to being someone big. And magically, in a single night, he did just that, all but doubling his size by transforming into a full-grown adult.

Anna Kostanian, only a baby when "Big" hit the screens and who has never seen flick to this day ("though all my friends say I should," she says), knows that wish very well, has dreamed that dream a zillion times, even now.

Mind you, she's never wanted to be Amazon-like or anything like that, just normal, nothing more than average, someone who didn't stick out so much and so oddly.

Yet, at 21 years old, Kostanian, arguably the best young American player on the women's tour, remains considerably height challenged, standing a mere 4-foot-11, 105 pounds, or maybe even as miniscule as 4-foot-10. In fact, the only way she can possibly reach a solid five feet is if she balances herself on her tippy-tippy toes - or if you count her luscious brown locks, which are often piled up on her head into something of a beehive.

"I'm not sure exactly how tall I am," she finally says in a tiny voice and with a tinier giggle. "I only know that it seems that everybody is taller than I am."

Predictably, throughout the years, she's dealt with all the corny short jokes, with not being taken seriously at times, with people laughingly calling her midget and the like. She's even being told occasionally she couldn't play in pool rooms because supposedly she wasn't tall enough.

"When people meet me for the first time, they'll say, 'Oh, my god, you're so short,' and I'm like saying to myself, 'Yeah, whatever.' It gets old after awhile." Kostanian has nevertheless come to terms with her height enough to where her boyfriend, Peter Sucre, 25, swears she's eternally "cheerful" and "optimistic," and to where at least in her chosen profession, she sees it as a decided advantage. "I think that because you're closer to the table," she says, "you can see the lines better."

Pool, of course, has always been her great equalizer, her leveled playing field of sweet revenge, forever beating up on countless others not only much taller than she but often twice or even three times her age - not to mention doing so with a seasoned, daddy-influenced game well beyond her years.

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