Capriati, Jennifer
Tennis
b. March 29, 1976, New York, NY
In 1990, the fourteen-year-old Capriati became the youngest player ever to reach the semi-finals of a grand slam tennis tournament, the French Open, and she was also the youngest ever to win a match at Wimbledon.
However, Capriati spent a couple of difficult years on the tour. Usually effervescent, she often seemed sullen or unhappy after losing in the quarter-finals of three consecutive grand slam events in 1992, but she was at her best in the Olympics, beating Steffi Graf to win the gold medal in singles.
"For two weeks, I was watching the other athletes up there who won gold medals and was thinking that it would be so cool to be up there," she said afterward. "Right now, this means more to me than any of the grand slams."
Late in 1993, Capriati left the tour to concentrate on her high school studies and to get away from the stresses and strains of professional tennis for a time.
Her tennis future was clouded by arrests for shoplifting in December of 1993 and for drug use in May of 1994. She returned to the tour in November, but lost her only match, in the opening round of a Philadelphia tournament, and once again left competitive tennis, this time for a 15-month layoff.
Capriati once again rejoined the pro tour in 1996, with mixed results. After winning some matches early in the year, she suffered a series of first-round defeats, then rebounded in November by beating Monica Seles to reach the finals of a Chicago tournament, where she lost in three sets. She ended that year ranked 24th in the world, but slipped to 66th at the end of 1997 and to 101st in 1998.
She began to climb back up in 1999, winning two titles, her first since 1993, and finishing the year ranked No. 23. In 2000, she moved up to No. 17, her first appearance in the top 20 since 1994, and she was a member of the winning U. S. Federation cup team, taking a singles and a doubles match in the final against Spain.
Capriati had her best season to date in 2001, winning the Australian Open for her first Grand Slam title. In the process, she beat three of the four top seeds, Martina Hingis, Lindsey Davenport, and Monica Seles. She went on to win the French Open and was ranked second in the world at year's end. Her performance won Capriati the AP Female Athlete of the Year Award, the Sports Illustrated for Women award as the Sportswoman of the year, and an Espy award as the Comeback Athlete of the Year.
In 2002, Capriati again won the Australian Open, but she lost in the semi-finals of the French Open and the quarter-finals both at Wimbledon and at the U. S. Open. Her play tailed off near the end of the year and in November she underwent eye surgery to remove sunspots. After being ranked third that year, she slipped to sixth in 2003, though she won her 400th career singles match that year.
Back and hamstring injuries have hampered her play in 2004.