The player: Jennifer Capriati
- Jennifer Capriati: Teen prodigy to burnout to Grand Slam champion
Jennifer Capriati was born in March 1976 in Long Island, New York. In 1986 her family moved to Florida, where, under the guidance of Chris Evert’s father, Jimmy, she became a world class tennis prodigy. Her powerful groundstrokes were quite revolutionary in women’s tennis. At the age of 13, she won the junior event at Roland-Garros and turned pro the next year, in 1990, even before she turned 14.
In March, she reached the final of her debut WTA tournament in Boca Raton, only to be defeated by world No 2 Gabriela Sabatini 6-4, 7-5. Already holding the 24th position in the WTA rankings, Capriati went on to become the youngest player to ever reach the final four at Roland-Garros, where she eliminated world No 8 Mary Joe Fernandez, before losing to Monica Seles 6-2, 6-2. Defeated in the US Open fourth round by world No 1 Steffi Graf 6-1, 6-1, the result moved her to the brink of the top 10 (No 11).
In 1991 and 1992, Capriati kept rising and reached the semi-finals at Wimbledon and the US Open in addition to winning the gold medal at the Olympic Games in Barcelona (defeated Steffi Graf 3-6, 6-3, 6-4).
Unfortunately, she then struggled to deal with the pressure put on her young shoulders by the media, and in 1994, she even quit tennis temporarily after being burnt out and went through a difficult time on the personal front (she was arrested for shoplifting and drug possession).
Back on the tour in 1996, Capriati didn’t achieve any remarkable results until the 2000 Australian Open, where she reached the semi-finals. This was the start of a new career, and in 2001, Capriati claimed two consecutive Grand Slam titles at the Australian Open and Roland-Garros.
The facts: Hingis’ loss paves way for Capriati to become No 1
In October 2001, after she had won the first two Grand Slams of the season, Capriati was an obvious contender for the world No 1 spot, which had been occupied by Swiss Miss Martina Hingis, without interruption, since May 2000. No one had one won in Melbourne and Paris in the same year since Monica Seles in 1992, and after her epic final won against Kim Clijsters in Paris (1-6, 6-4, 12-10), some even began to discuss if she could win the calendar Grand Slam. However, Capriati was defeated in the semi-finals at both Wimbledon (by Justine Henin, 2-6, 6-4, 6-2) and at the US Open (by Venus Williams, 6-4, 6-2).
Nonetheless, thanks to those results she climbed … (truncated)
