Jennifer Capriati

Jennifer Marie Capriati (b. March 29 1976, in
Manhattan, New York) is a former World No. 1 woman
tennis player from the United States. During her
career, she has won three Grand Slam
(tennis)|Grand Slam singles titles (2 Australian
Open, 1 French Open), as well as the women's
singles Gold Medal at the 1992 Olympic Games.

Capriati was introduced to tennis while she still
a toddler by her father, Stefano Capriati, an
Italian-American former boxer turned tennis coach,
who has continued to coach her in her later
professional career. In 1986, when Jennifer's
burgeoning tennis talent became obvious, her
family moved to Florida, where the ten-year-old
player was enrolled in an intense training program
run by Jimmy Evert, the father of Chris Evert.

In 1989, Capriati served notice to the tennis
world by becoming the youngest player to win the
French Open junior singles title at the age of 13
years and 2 months. (The record stood until 1993,
when it was broken by Martina Hingis who won the
title as a 12-year-old). Capriati went on to win
the junior singles title at the 1989 U.S. Open
(tennis)|US Open, and the junior doubles titles
at both the US Open and Wimbledon
Championships|Wimbledon (partnering Meredith
McGrath).

Capriati turned professional at the beginning of
March 1990, four weeks before her 14th birthday.
In her debut tournament on the tour, at Boca
Raton, Florida, she defeated four seeded players
on her way to becoming the youngest-ever player to
reach a tour final, where she lost 6-4, 7-5 to
Gabriela Sabatini. Three months later, she became
the youngest-ever semi-finalist at the French Open
(aged 14 years and 2 months), where she lost to
the eventual champion Monica Seles. Capriati went
on to reach the fourth round at both Wimbledon and
the US Open that year, and won her first top-level
singles title that October at San Juan, Puerto
Rico. She finished her first year on the tour
ranked the World No. 8.

1991 saw Capriati reach the semi-finals at
Wimbledon and the US Open. She became Wimbledon's
youngest-ever semi-finalist after defeating the
defending-champion Martina Navratilova in the
quarter-finals, forcing Navratilova's earliest
Wimbeldon exit for 14 years. She won two singles
titles that year, as well as her first (and only)
tour doubles title (in Rome Masters|Rome
partnering Monica Seles).

The biggest moment of Capriati's early-career came
in 1992, when she won the women's singles Gold
Medal at the Olympic Games in Barcelona. In the
final, she defeated Steffi Graf (who was the Gold
Medalist four years earlier in Seoul) in three
sets 3-6, 6-3, 6-4.

But despite her Olympic triumph, it became clear
to observers that Capriati was struggling to cope
with the pressures of playing at the top by the
end of 1992. The enjoyment of playing the game
which she exuded when she first joined the tour
seemed to have drained away, and her results
started to suffer.

After some disappointing losses in 1993, Capriati
took a break from the tour to concentrate on her
high school studies. She soon ran into personal
and legal troubles. She was involved in a
shoplifting incident in December 1993, and in May
1994 she was arrested for marijuana possession. In
November 1994, a return to the tour lasted just
one match, which she lost. After that, she went on
a sabbatical of 15 months and did not play on the
tour for the whole of 1995.

Returning to the tour in 1996, Capriati again had
several false starts. In May 1999, she finally won
her first tournament in six years at Strasbourg.

In 2001, 11 years after she had first taken the
tour by storm as a young prodigy, Capriati finally
made her Grand Slam breakthough. She reached the
final of the Australian Open against the
then-World No. 1 player Martina Hingis, and won in
straight sets 6-4, 6-3. She followed this up by
capturing the French Open title five months later,
beating Kim Clijsters in a dramatic final 1-6,
6-4, 12-10. In October 2001, Capriati reached the
World No. 1 ranking.

Capriati won her third Grand Slam title in 2002,
when she sucessfully defended her Australian Open
crown. In the final against Hingis, Capriati was
4-6, 0-4 down at one point, but battled back to
win 4-6, 7-6, 6-2.

During her career, Capriati has won 14
professional singles titles and 1 doubles title as
well as earning herself the nickname "The
Incredible Bulk"

Recently, she has suffered several dramatic Grand
Slam defeats and has struggled with various
injuries that have kept her from playing a full
tour schedule.