Jennifer Capriati, tennis champion
SHE BURST ON TO the pro tennis scene in 1990, aged just 13, but by the time she reached her late teens, Jennifer Capriati was already being labelled a burnt-out has-been. In her first season, the tennis prodigy from New York powered her way to the world’s number eight ranking, becoming the youngest-ever player to reach the French Open semi-finals, and the youngest seeded player at Wimbledon. But for Capriati, it was truly a case of “too much, too young”.
Her powerful playing style saw her defeat Monica Seles and Martina Navratilova in 1991, then she went on to win gold at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992. After four straight years in the world top 10 rankings, however, Capriati fell off the radar. She played – and lost – only one match in 1994, and wasn’t seen on court for the whole of 1995.
What had happened to tennis’s brightest, brashest young star? Though she had a killer backhand and a powerhouse return of serve, Capriati’s biggest weakness was her immaturity. Unable to cope with fame and success, and exhausted by her gruelling tournament schedules, Capriati found herself moving from the sports pages to the scandal sheets.
Despite having earned a fortune as a tennis star, she was arrested for shoplifting, and a year later faced marijuana possession charges after being caught doing drugs in a hotel room in Florida. It looked like it was all over for the young prodigy.
In the late 1990s, however, Capriati slowly but sure-footedly began her return to the top, clawing her way back to centre court and climbing to the world’s number one ranking. She won a grand slam match at Wimbledon in 1998, defeated Martina Hingis to win the 2001 Australian Open, and won the French Open the same year. In 2002 she faced Hingis again in the Australian Open. This time it looked like the match belonged to Hingis, but Capriati staged an epic recovery to win the match and seal her title as tennis’s comeback kid.
Capriati’s second bite of the cherry was soured by injury problems, which eventually forced her to bow out of professional tennis at the end of the 2004 season. But her demons weren’t ready to retire just yet. In 2010, Capriati was rushed to hospital following a suspected overdose of prescription drugs.
At 36, she is unmarried, but has been romantically linked with Friends star Matthew Perry. She was in the news again last month, but this story had a happy ending: she was elected into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
“Tennis has been my passion and dedication for my entire life, and to be acknowledged for this passion and dedication is truly the icing on the cake,” she said.
