|
 |   |
|
EVENTS Fantasy Central Inside Game Multimedia Central Statitudes Your Turn Message Boards Email Newsletters Golf Guide Cities Work in Sports
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE |  |
Sentiment aside Davenport, Capriati primed for semis showdown
Posted: Wednesday January 26, 2000 02:48 AM
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) -- Jennifer Capriati and Lindsay Davenport have been Olympic champions and are the same age. But they've never been considered contemporaries -- until now. When Capriati was at her peak as a 15-year-old and a regular in the top 10, Davenport was in school and playing the junior circuit. It wasn't until after Capriati had dropped out of the game, a victim of teenage burnout, that Davenport emerged on the scene. Davenport describes Capriati's comeback as the "best story in women's tennis," but says she won't feel like a villain if she spoils the fairytale in Thursday's Australian Open semifinal. "I'm sure the crowd will be for [Capriati] and probably in everyone's hearts in the States," Davenport said. "If she was playing anyone else, I'd want her to win, but I'm not going to be thinking about that too much." The second-seeded Davenport reached her third straight Australian Open semifinal with a 6-1, 6-2 victory over No. 9 Julie Halard-Decugis on Tuesday. Capriati advanced to her first Grand Slam semifinal in nine years with a 6-0, 6-2 win over Ai Sugiyama and said she can "go all the way. "I've come this far, so I'm not going to think otherwise," Capriati said. The semifinal between the 23-year-olds is only their second meeting in a major. Davenport has a 2-1 lead in their overall series, including a 6-2, 6-3 win last year in the fourth round of the French Open, their only Grand Slam match. Davenport knows the fans will be favoring Capriati, but she has her own ambitions to fulfill, including reaching the final after semifinal losses the past two years. Davenport won the gold medal at the 1996 Olympics, won the '98 U.S. Open and is the defending Wimbledon champion, but she has yet to reach an Australian Open final. "I've lost the semifinals in close matches and I hope this will be the year I break into the final," she said. Davenport said she was in awe of Capriati in her prime. "When I was 13, she turned pro and she was one of my idols for about a year because she did so well," Davenport said. "I wasn't even near her level. "And then when you see what she has gone through, maybe her dark few years, or years that didn't go so well, to see that she has come back now ... it was great to see her win," against Sugiyama but "hopefully it ends Thursday. "It's amazing that we're both here after the different paths we took." Capriati was near the top before her career went sour in 1993 and she dropped off the circuit, except for a few halfhearted comeback attempts, until last year. In 1990, at 14, Capriati became the youngest semifinalist in Grand Slam history by reaching the French Open semis. Later that year, she became the youngest seeded player in Wimbledon history, the youngest player to win a Wimbledon match and the youngest player to attain a top 10 ranking. In 1991, she earned more than $1 million in prize money, and the following year she won the Olympic gold medal, beating Steffi Graf in the final. After six years off the tour, she started turning things around again in 1999, improving her ranking from No. 101 to No. 23 after linking with coach Harold Solomon. A win Thursday would send her into her first Grand Slam final and improve her ranking to 10 or 11. Capriati remembers her last Grand Slam semifinal in 1991 and hopes to benefit from the experience, despite the long time lapse. It was against Monica Seles, "that I was close but didn't get it," she said. "Since that time I've never played well except for the Olympics, so I'm here again and I'm in the semis. I believe I can go all the way."
| ||||||||||||||||||||
