Flashback Friday: Capriati’s Complex Career Captivated All

By Chris Oddo

(July 13, 2012) -- She was as complex as a rambling John Coltrane saxophone solo, as warm as a smoky Billie Holiday ditty, but Jennifer Capriati definitely had a little punk rock in her as well.

“I’m not an addict to drugs, but you could say I’m an addict to my own pain. Or I was,” Capriati told the New York Times in 1994, while readying herself for the return to tennis that would eventually net her three Grand Slam titles, the No. 1 ranking (for 17 weeks), and plenty of roller-coaster rides, both on the court in her numerous epic matches and off the court with her fragile, contemplative persona. “I had this sarcasm about everything. My spirit was just, like, dark."

That Capriati had risen to the upper echelons of the tennis world as a precocious 13-and 14-year-old might not have been the real reason for her inner turmoil. Some people are just destined to question their reality, and Capriati was one of them. Call it a curse if you like, but I truly believe that Capriati’s rebellious nature, her desire to understand herself and those around her, are what make this remarkable woman and tennis player all the more compelling, both as an athlete and as a person.

Capriati contemplated her surreal, tennis-centric reality, and she didn’t always like what she saw. Not surprisingly, she developed a natural longing to be a normal kid. The grass was greener for Jennifer Capriati, and as a 14-year-old who had the world at her beck and call, she elected to throw as much of it away as was humanly possible. “I felt like my parents and everybody else though that tennis was the way to make it in life, they thought it was good, but I thought no one knew or wanted to know the person who was behind my tennis life,” she told the Times.

And she did throw away a year that was highlighted by multiple arrests and a trip to a drug rehabilitation clinic.

But the talent—that sizzling wallop that she packed in her ground strokes, and her mental toughness, perhaps second to only Serena Williams in that regard—wouldn’t go away. Nor would Capriati’s deep, explorative side that made her one of the most intriguing players that the game has ever known.

Her roller-coaster emotional life was mirrored—much to the delight of tennis fans—by her roller-coaster tennis career. Capriati played some of the most gut-wrenching, mind-bogglingly intense matches in the history of the game.

And there are videos to prove it.

Take, for instance, her 2002 Australian Open final, played in sweltering, you-can-fry-an-egg-on-the-baseline heat, in which Capriati came back from a set and 4-0 down to take out Martina Hingis.

After an over-the-top tirade, in which Capriati adamantly begged for a linesman’s dismissal (she cursed and screamed, saying “I want him out!”), Capriati’s title defense looked to be all but lost.

Yet, somehow, she rallied, saving four match points in the second set and eventually claiming her third Grand Slam title, 4-6, 7-6(7), 6-2.

“I don’t know how I won; I really don’t know,” she said afterwards, of her final Grand Slam title.

But we knew.

It was Capriati’s grit, her feistiness, and her big heart that enabled her to tap her well of physical prowess in these magnanimous moments.

That big heart was on display in 2001, when Capriati edged Kim Clijsters, 12-10 in the third set to claim her only French Open title. It was also on display at the US Open in 2003, when she battled with a cramping Justine Henin long and late into the New York night.

There were so many epic battles, so much proof that Capriati -- in spite of her much-publicized demons—was a spiritual goddess with a deep, yearning soul and an immense knack for drama, intensity, and brilliant power tennis.

In a world filled with so many vanilla-flavored sports stars, Jennifer Capriati’s tennis career was a refreshing rainbow of pleasure, pain, depth and determination. She stole the heart of a nation as a teenager, then spit in the face of her own good fortune.

Finally, as she struggled to come to grips with it all, her own overwhelming capacity to play the game that she loved brought her to new highs. She became a champion—not just of tennis, but of herself.