Jennifer Capriati, the troubled tennis phenom whose career began as a fairy tale at 13 and derailed in despair at 17, plans to return to competition next month in Zurich at the European Indoors, a $750,000 event played in the 4,000-seat Sallsporthalle.
Capriati said she intends to implement the second phase in her comeback the following week in Filderstadt, Germany, at the Porsche Grand Prix. Depending on her spirits and results, she will then determine her future schedule.
“It may seem like a sudden decision to some people, but I’ve wanted to play again for some time, and I’ve thought it out and I figure, why not, that mentally I’m ready to play,” Capriati said Tuesday from the home her family recently rented in Rancho Mirage, Calif.
Capriati’s request for a wild card into both WTA events was readily accepted by the organizers.
“It’s going to be different this time around; I’m not going to put a lot of pressure on myself,” said Capriati, whose spectacular rise-from an unranked junior in 1989 to the youngest player ever to own a top 10 ranking as a 14-year-old in 1990-was accompanied by inevitable expectations from her entourage, her sponsors and herself.
“I just want to play again, have fun, and see how it goes,” said Capriati, who seemed to have less and less fun the more successful she became.
She ended 1993 ranked No. 9 in the world despite missing the final three months of the tour, but she has not played since her first-round defeat in the U.S. Open just over a year ago. In that loss, she pointed to a painful combination of bone chips in her right arm and the discouraging disappearance of her motivation.
Moreover, the first-round loss represented her poorest showing in four years of Grand Slam competition and was a harbinger of a nine-month slide during which she not only swore off tennis but received a citation for shoplifting at a suburban Tampa mall in December. She moved into her own apartment and then moved home again to concentrate on completing her senior year of high school.
But shortly after turning 18 last March, Capriati left school, left home again and moved in with a female friend who attends college in Boca Raton. Her downswing culminated on May 16 with her arrest at a seedy motel in Coral Gables, Fla., where she was charged with marijuana possession. Two other teenagers who had been at a party in her motel room were arrested on felony drug charges.
Her arrest prompted Capriati to enter a substance-abuse clinic in Miami, where she remained for 23 days before going home to Wesley Chapel, Fla. She then agreed to cooperate with a Dade County court-monitored drug counseling program, The Advocate, allowing her to avoid a court appearance and have the charges against her dropped upon satisfactory completion of the course.
While Capriati appeared to have solved her legal problems, she was treated with less sympathy by the various corporate sponsors who provided her with a $5 million yearly portfolio when she was 14, happily ranked No. 8 in the world, and infinitely marketable. During her hiatus from tennis, all of her sponsors ended their affiliation with her, and officials at Prince, her longtime racquet sponsor, indicated that any future contracts with Capriati would likely specify a code of acceptable behavior.
In what was very much a move designed to allow the entire family to “start over,” according to Capriati’s mother, Denise, the family left Jennifer’s training ground at the Saddlebrook Resort for Rancho Mirage, Calif. at the end of August.
Since then, Capriati has resumed practicing at a local club and her father, Stefano, with whom she had a tempestuous relationship while he was her coach, has reappeared at courtside as an adviser and procurer of hitting partners. Capriati said she isn’t interested in hiring a coach until she sees whether this comeback inspires her to want to compete again on a full-time basis.
Capriati described 1992 as “a waste” with the exception of the Olympic gold medal she won at Barcelona, and last year she won her first circuit stop at Sydney, Australia in January. But she was halted in the quarterfinals of the Australian and French Opens and Wimbledon, a mirror-image of her 1992 performance at those slams. Before the opening-round loss at the U.S. Open, Capriati had reached the final of the Canadian Open, her best result since she earned her sixth career title at Sydney.
At the 1990 French Open, Capriati became at 14 the youngest semifinalist in Grand Slam history, and in 1991 she was Wimbledon’s youngest semifinalist. But her problems since her debut are largely responsible for the recent Women’s Tennis Council decision to prohibit 14-year-olds from playing on the WTA Tour as of 1996.
According to Capriati’s agent at the International Management Group, Barbara Perry, the decision to return to the circuit next month comes from the player herself.
“It was her idea,” said Perry. “She wants to play again, and she seems to want to play soon.”
