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13 - 26 January 2003

Jennifer Capriati

Capriatti Loses in First Round of Australian Open

by Christopher Clarey, New York Times, January 13, 2003
MELBOURNE, Jan. 13 — Jennifer Capriati has made a habit of flirting with danger in Melbourne and emerging unscathed. But fortune and a suddenly fearless, flat-stroking German named Marlene Weingartner caught up with her on Monday night: knocking the two-time defending champion out of the Australian Open in the very first round and leaving her in tears in the photograph-lined hallways in the depths of Rod Laver Arena.

It was a poignant twist to the comeback tale that began here in 2001 for Capriati, when she shrugged off years of underachievement and personal problems to roll to her first Grand Slam singles title. Last year, Capriati saved four match points in a rollicking, overcooked final against Martina Hingis to defend her crown. But this year, she saved none, although she did salvage seven break points on her serve in the final set before Weingartner's bold shotmaking and Capriati's inconsistency conspired to finish off this major upset.

Weingartner's 2-6, 7-6 (8-6), 6-4 victory was the only big surprise on a hot, blustery and otherwise uneventful opening day in Melbourne.

Though she has shown flashes of brilliance, including a run to the fourth round here last year, Weingartner has yet to live up to the considerable promise she displayed as a junior. She arrived in Melbourne with an unintimidating world ranking of 90. But her victory was less of a surprise after the third-seeded Capriati finished explaining what she has endured since ending last season on a relatively high note by giving Serena Williams a genuine test in the semifinals of the Tour Championships in early November. The following week, she underwent surgery on both eyes to remove pterygiums: abnormal masses of tissue that, if left untreated, can eventually obstruct vision by growing over the cornea.

"I couldn't see properly, and they were getting worse," Capriati said. "Really the only time I can do it is in the off-season. I think waiting another year would have been too late."

After the surgery, her doctor required her to limit her exposure to light. "For two weeks, I mean, basically I was in the dark, because I couldn't be in the sunlight, because my eyes were too sensitive," she said.

It would be two weeks more before she was able to resume practice in mid-December, which helps explain why her physical conditioning and timing in Melbourne were clearly inferior to the previous two years.

That is only part of the explanation, however. She has clearly descended from the peak she reached in 2001 and has not won a tournament of any kind since her unlikely victory here against Hingis. She was beaten in the quarterfinals last year at Wimbledon and the United States Open. Her loss to Weingartner could drop her as low as No. 8 in the rankings.

"You know, the eyes felt okay out there," she said. "But I would have to say the recovery time wasn't enough, and I feel like I just didn't give myself enough chance to fully prepare. Probably if I wasn't the defending champion, I wouldn't have showed up, and I probably should have considered that."

Instead, tennis statisticians were left thumbing through the record books for precedents. Since the Open era began in 1968, no defending women's champion has lost in the first round at the Australian Open. The last defending champion to stumble at the first hurdle in any Grand Slam event was Steffi Graf in 1994 at Wimbledon against Lori McNeil.

And yet, midway through the second set on Monday, Capriati looked anything like a victim. After winning the first with relative ease, she jumped out to a 3-0 lead and later led 4-2 after breaking Weingartner's serve. But the German broke Capriati back in the next game and then pushed the set into a tiebreaker, in which Capriati was two points from winning the match at 6-6 before double faulting. The second serve has long been Capriati's weakness, and Monday was no exception as she finished with 10 double faults: four of them coming in the final set.

But even with Capriati's difficulties, Weingartner still needed to play brave tennis down the stretch to finish her off: going for winners off Capriati's serves and holding her own and more from the baseline. Watching her trade groundstrokes and tactics with the much better-known American in the final two sets, it was difficult to believe she had a 9-20 record last season.

"I didn't really think about winning,"' Weingartner said. "I just played my match, and I just tried to put her under pressure a lot. If I play my game, I think that I can beat a lot of top players. I've already beaten some. So I have the potential for sure; I'm sure about that."

Weingartner, a former finalist in three of the four Grand Slam junior events, has been hearing it from others for years: from her father, who financed the bulk of her training after withdrawing her from the German national program as a youngster; from her new Croatian coach Borna Bikic; even at one brief stage from Jim Pierce, the overbearing, abusive father and former coach of French and Australian Open champion Mary Pierce. Jim Pierce asked Weingartner if he could coach her when she was 14 after watching her beat Serena Williams in a practice match in Florida.

"We worked only one month together, but I learned a lot," Weingartner said. "He's a very hard worker. Hard work I think makes the difference. And very, just a lot of focus."

Weingartner, now 22, has a residence in Saddlebrook, Fla., the same community where Capraiti lives, and they have trained together on occasion.

But Weingartner's base remains Germany. As a child, she spent several years living in German tennis great Boris Becker's former family home in Leimen.

Her bedroom was Becker's old bedroom. Talk about foreshadowing, but Weingartner has a long way to go before she becomes Germany's next champion. Six rounds to be precise, and it is a good bet that some of her future opponents will be seeing more clearly and striking the ball more cleanly than Capriati on Monday.