MAKING IT LOOK LIKE CHILD’S PLAY : What Is Expected of 14-Year-Old Jennifer Capriati? Anything Less Than Being the Best Women’s Tennis Player of All Time Could Be a Disappointment

Let’s see, now. What are we to make of this? The future of women’s tennis is 14 years old, wears men’s size-8 1/2 sneakers, hits the ball so hard it leaves a vapor trail, was a millionaire at 13, has no idea of the words to the national anthem, knows the rap song “Busta Move” by heart, loves pink, thinks negative vibes are gross, practices so hard she gets callouses on her hands and already has an idea of how she wants people to remember her.

“I’d like, you know, when I retire, like, you know, when I go down the street, people would say, ‘There’s Jennifer Capriati, the greatest tennis player who ever lived,’ you know.” Thus spoke Jennifer Capriati, a true teen-age tennis phenom on track for a rendezvous with superstardom, wealth, fame and, possibly, a date.

Boys, oh, boys, she likes them, sure, but there isn’t any one particular boyfriend in the picture yet, for goodness sakes. Capriati said she really doesn’t have any boyfriends and for a very good reason.

“I prefer to treat them as friends because I don’t want to break their hearts,” she said and then giggled.

Neither does Capriati have a car, of course. Why, when she made it to the final of the Family Circle Cup at Hilton Head, S.C., it was her second final in the first three tournaments she played, all of them wheel-less. Capriati lost to 33-year-old Martina Navratilova, who won $100,000 and a new car. Navratilova accepted the keys in a postmatch ceremony at center court and then looked over at Capriati.

“It’s just as well that I won the car because if Jennifer had won, she couldn’t drive it anyway,” Navratilova said.

Capriati had a quick comeback: “Got any golf carts?”

Most of what Jennifer Capriati has done in tennis has been quick. After only four professional tournaments, she was ranked No. 24, had won 16 of 20 matches, had reached two finals and one quarterfinal and had beaten reigning French Open champion Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, 6-1, 6-1, on clay.

Capriati’s junior titles were legendary. At 12, she won the U.S. Tennis Assn.’s 18-and-under national championship, the youngest to take that age-group title. At 13, she won junior championships at the French Open and the U.S. Open.

At 14? Many believe she’ll be ranked in the top five by the end of the year. Although Capriati is not seeded in the French Open, which begins Monday at Stade Roland Garros, her mere appearance will probably represent a footnote when the history of women’s tennis is written: Capriati’s first Grand Slam event. Can she win it? Sanchez Vicario thinks not.

“She is too young,” said Sanchez Vicario, 18.

Some are not so sure, among them Billie Jean King and Capriati’s coach, Tom Gullikson. King, 47, played doubles with Capriati, someone just about young enough to be her granddaughter, in Capriati’s first tournament and came away with a healthy respect for the teen-ager’s prowess.

“She is the most powerful person of her age I have ever seen, without any question,” King said. “Chris (Evert) proved that if you’re going to be a great player, by the time you’re 14, 15, you’re there. And she’s there, believe me, with bells on. For her, the sky’s the limit.”

Like many others, Gullikson sees Capriati’s potential blazing brightly, a maturity level that belies her age and an advanced game built on lessons learned about solid groundstrokes.

“I think she can do extremely well in the French,” Gullikson said. “She’s very receptive to coaching, and she is a very advanced player for her age. Certainly her backhand is her real strength, but she’s also got a very good first serve. She’s got a great service motion--a nice, smooth, continuous swing.

“She is definitely a power-dictating type of player. She is extremely good.”

Gullikson shares coaching duties with Capriati’s father, Stefano, a former professional soccer player in Italy and Spain and a one-time Hollywood stuntman with credits in “100 Rifles” and “Patton.” Stefano Capriati belongs to the USTA, which means Jennifer is eligible for coaching help from the association.

Gullikson works under Stan Smith, who heads the USTA’s touring pro program designed to help talented American youngsters.

“It’s our viewpoint that (Capriati) is without question the most talented young pro in the world, man or woman,” Gullikson said.

This is weighty stuff, to be sure. It wouldn’t be surprising for a more fragile teen-ager to find such expectations suffocating. But Capriati is not your normal teen-ager, and neither is she your normal teen-age tennis phenom. If pedigrees are important, then Capriati has been groomed for greatness. She is blue-ribbon material.

Born on Long Island, 3-year-old Jennifer accompanied Stefano and her mother, Denise, a Pan American Airways flight attendant, to the tennis court in Spain because they could not afford a baby-sitter. Stefano quickly realized that his daughter had ability, so the family moved to Florida to be able to play all year.

Jennifer’s first coach was Jimmy Evert, Chris Evert’s father. Capriati was 5. John Evert, Chris’ brother and agent and now Capriati’s agent, recalled the first time Chris heard about the player who would eventually be called her second coming.

“Dad came home one night and said to Chrissie, ‘I think I’ve finally found someone as talented as you,’ which was kind of neat,” John Evert said. “My dad said this when Chrissie was No. 1 in the world. But Jennifer really had something special when she was 5, 6, 7 years old, and you can only notice that in a couple of kids.”

Capriati was coached by Rick Macci for four years, ages 10 to 13, at Grenelefe, Fla., as she became something of a legend in the junior ranks. When she won the 18-and-under national title at 12, Capriati knew she might be something special, although her father said he sensed such prospects long before.

Stocky and dark-haired, 54-year-old Stefano is Jennifer’s primary coach as they plunge together into the international professional game as rookies. Circumspect and protective of his daughter, the elder Capriati is somewhat wary of journalists, but he also understands their value.

Stefano watches all of Jennifer’s practice sessions, including a recent one at her home in the Saddlebrook resort at Wesley Chapel, Fla. She was working with Gullikson and her practice partner, Richard Ashby, also of the USTA. Stefano interrupted a question to make a point to Jennifer, who was practicing a court away.

He waved and she smiled. She ran down a drop shot in a drill and sent it back over the net, just out of Gullikson’s reach. Next, Jennifer sent a two-handed backhand screaming into the corner of the court and shouted: “Hey, baby!”

From his chair in the shade, Stefano smiled. “She loves, she enjoys,” he said.

It is vital, he said, that Jennifer like what she does. Yes, he is a “tennis father,” he admitted, but only in the purest sense. He does not push, he said--he only aids, a philosophy he chose to adopt when Jennifer was very young.

“The kids, until they have their own personality or mind, which is around 8 or 9 years old, you must tell them what they are doing,” he said. “You try to direct her in the right way, and you see she has the potential. I see she enjoys it. After 9-10 years, you cannot direct them anymore. They must want it.”

According to Stefano, it is also important that his family carry on as normal a life as possible, regardless of Jennifer’s rocket-like ride to stardom.

“Tennis, they train alone, they think alone, they play alone,” he said. “They are always alone. So (it) is important in life to switch from tennis. So (it) is good for the brain, is good for the mind, is good for everything.”

Denise Capriati has kept her job as a flight attendant, even though her daughter already has two endorsement contracts worth an estimated $5 million, with more on the horizon. Said Stefano: “We don’t know what is going to happen, so we don’t want to put all the eggs in one pot.”

John Evert believes that there will be plenty of eggs to spread around. He has been given the assignment at International Management Group to make the most of the business opportunities that surely await a budding young tennis star. Actually, better make that a budding young American tennis star.

Evert first put himself on the trail of Capriati when she was 10, and he tried to make sure she would replace his retired sister as IMG’s top female tennis client.

But 10 years old?

“It was kind of early,” Evert admitted, “but gosh, she was awesome.”

Apparently, Capriati’s marketability is awesome, too. With Evert’s guidance, Capriati became a millionaire before she turned pro. Diadora, an Italian sportswear company, signed Capriati to a five-year endorsement contract with performance clauses that could be worth $1 million a year. She also signed a three-year contact, which is believed to be worth $1 million a year to use Prince tennis rackets.

“There were obviously a lot of companies interested,” Evert said. “The Nikes, the Reeboks, the Adidases, Ellesse, a couple more. But Diadora, the position they would put her in, make her the flagship of women’s tennis, well, they’re strongly European and want to make an impact in the American market.

“When she signed with Prince, she wanted a new wide-body, big-surface-area racket, and her dad gave her the go-ahead,” Evert said.

Many other companies are pursuing Capriati, who has picked up two additional endorsements recently. She signed a deal with a diet food product and will wear a Gatorade patch on her shirt during the French Open. Evert prefers to move slowly in the endorsement area and to exercise caution.

“From a time standpoint and an image standpoint, I think we can be a little choosy with Jennifer because someone like her only comes along every 20-25 years,” he said.

The Capriatis are discussing an offer for Jennifer to leave Saddlebrook and become a touring pro at Broken Sound Country Club in Boca Raton, Fla., near the Polo Club, where Chris Evert is the touring pro.

Capriati’s earning power for endorsements is considered very high. Fewer people are playing tennis and they are buying fewer tennis products, such as clothes and shoes. According to Business Week, the National Sporting Goods Assn. estimated that the number of men and women recreational tennis players in the United States in 1988 was 17.3 million, or 2.2 million fewer than in 1984.

One explanation for such a plunge is that women have taken up sports such as aerobics and running, the magazine speculated. But another reason is that the emphasis of women’s tennis has shifted to Europe, which is being dominated by No. 1-ranked Steffi Graf of West Germany.

Capriati seems to have arrived in the right place at the right time.

“She’s an unbelievable tennis player with unbelievable talent, but she’s also got a very dynamic personality,” John Evert said. “And probably one of the most important things, she’s an American.

“She’s filling that void, so to speak, between, you know, it was Billie Jean and then it was Chrissie, and there really hasn’t been anybody since Chrissie,” he said. “There have been a lot of European players, but there hasn’t been any American player who has come up and really made an impact.”

Evert is devoting himself entirely to handling Capriati, passing to others at IMG accounts such as Mary Joe Fernandez, Lori McNeil and Susan Sloane. Evert jokes that he is too busy forming Capriati’s image.

“I want her image to be just as she is right now,” he said. “A happy-go-lucky kid, a 14-year-old having fun out on the tennis court who has a great disposition on the court, but also who has some personality off the court. You talk about media training, you talk about working with her on certain things, I’m not sure that’s all good for Jennifer because she’s so natural and she’s good at it.

“Her interviews and her speeches are ad-lib and they’re great,” he said. “I think, right now, it’s better not to let her think too much, just to kind of let her be herself.”

Interviewers find a 14-year-old who is an expert at answering questions she has heard many times by now. In fact, she already has come up with pat answers. Before her professional debut at the Virginia Slims of Florida, Capriati twice fielded questions from 40 reporters in two separate conference calls. Some answers did not vary, possibly because the questions didn’t:

--Are you missing your childhood? “I’m not missing anything. I mean, if I do miss a party or something, I’m willing to make a sacrifice.”

--Are you afraid of burnout? “I won’t get burnout unless I want it. I think it’s because you don’t want to be out there and you’re frustrated.”

--Are you like Chris? “I mean, it’s an honor to be compared to her. In another way, I don’t want it, either, because I want to be my own, you know. I want to be the first Jennifer Capriati.”

When she hears an all-too-familiar question, Capriati wrinkles her nose and whispers, “Instant replay.”

She is at the same time a chatty teen-ager and a world-class tennis star in ascent. At the Palmer School near Capriati’s home, she studied Spanish and history and was just another one of the girls. Even in the glare of celebrity, Capriati still finds that modesty mixed with teen truth comes easily. She was asked if she feels she is something special.

“I feel like a kid, kidwise,” she said. “But tenniswise, I feel I guess I have talent, I guess. When I’m on the court, I just block out everything I’m thinking about. I bring out my tennis stuff. When I’m off, I’m just a kid.”

Jennifer is comfortable in kid-dom. She has a dog, a Shih Tzu named Bianca. Her bedroom is basically pink. She has stuffed animals on her brass bed, which is covered by a Laura Ashley bedspread of roses. There are pink-striped pillows and pink roses on her bed. She also has a compact disc player and likes dancing alone in her room. She wants a television set in her room but hasn’t convinced her parents yet.

King said Capriati retains some of the trappings of being a little girl.

“You see it in the dressing room (when Capriati is) talking to other people,” King said. “She’s hysterical. Like when we played doubles down in Florida, she said, ‘Now, clasp our hands, now you got to snap our fingers while we’re holding hands.’ I’m going, ‘Oh, my God, all these funny little things already?’

“And I really met my match as far as talking (goes). ‘Whoa,’ I thought. ‘Oh, she’ll be quiet, I’ll leave her alone,’ right? Just the opposite. In fact, two points went by and we hadn’t talked, and she goes, ‘What’s wrong? Are you all right?” It was fun for me being as old as I am, but I was thinking, if I were a teen-ager today, oh, that would have been fun, too. We could play doubles for 20 years.”

Capriati plans to play until she’s 35, long enough to have settled once and for all the burnout question she hates to be asked. So many times she is compared to Tracy Austin and Andrea Jaeger, teen-age stars who left pro tennis in their prime. In fact, Capriati considers the burnout question her least favorite.

“It’s like, you know, it’s not my fault,” she said. “Why does everybody think it’s going to happen to me? How do they know what my limit is?”

Actually, Austin probably dislikes being asked about burnout more than Capriati. Austin, 27, stopped playing on the tour in 1983 after a series of injuries. She lives in Southern California, is rehabilitating a leg broken in an auto accident and hopes to play TeamTennis with the Los Angeles Strings.

“Every time a reporter writes a story about burnout, my name comes up,” Austin said. “It just makes me sick. What happened to me was not burnout, it was injuries. I loved to play when I couldn’t. I still do. If there’s anything Jennifer needs to say when she’s asked about burnout, it’s to just talk about her love for the game. She’ll be all right then.”

In an effort to avoid any physical problems, Stefano Capriati twice took Jennifer to the Virginia Sports Medicine Clinic in Arlington, Va. The USTA’s Jim Loehr discovered that her right shoulder was weak and susceptible to injury. Loehr immediately placed Capriati on a training program to increase flexibility and strength.

On the court, her game grows stronger, too. Gullikson is pushing Capriati, 5-7 and 130 pounds, to come to the net more, where she can take advantage of her quickness and maneuverability.

“Like taking the second serve, for instance, and coming in,” Gullikson said. “A lot of times, those are the shortest balls you ever get in tennis. She should step in and take it on the rise. Also, to come in behind her second serve. She’s doing it right now.”

Capriati is developing a one-handed forehand volley, which John Evert believes will eventually separate her from Graf and Gabriela Sabatini. Capriati’s groundstrokes already are regarded as being as powerful and technically proficient as anyone’s on the women’s tour.

“She has a winner’s mentality, and she is at least the second-hardest hitter after Graf,” King said. “She could even hit the ball as hard, I’m not sure.”

Capriati is also hitting the books, although in her own way. When she made her pro debut at Boca Raton, she had her Palmer School homework faxed to her. The night she beat Sanchez Vicario at Hilton Head, she was in the library working on a history paper.

A day after Sabatini beat her in the quarterfinals of the Italian Open, Capriati visited the Colosseum and the Forum in Rome. She wrote a paper for her eighth-grade history class about them.

Expectations for Capriati are high. After all, she has played in only four pro tournaments, is about to play in her first Grand Slam and won’t be 15 until next March. In fact, Navratilova had won seven tournaments before Capriati was born.

Jennifer Capriati said she is not afraid of any player on the court. But surely she is, well, maybe a little nervous?

“I’m probably scared of just going out there and just, like, people expecting you to do something,” she said. “Just like, you know, maybe you’re scared you’re there playing the finals of the French Open or maybe Wimbledon with all these people there, the princess and everything and playing Steffi Graf.”

She paused for a breath.

“But that’s more exciting than nervous,” she said. “It’s exciting-nervous. I’m not scared, though. Because if you’re scared, then why are you out there? You’re not going to do good. Might as well go for it.

“I just want to go out and play well. You know, I mean I’d like to win the French and Wimbledon, but I just want to play well, try my best and have fun.”

Yes, but Jennifer, what if you really do win the French Open and then really do win Wimbledon? What then? Would all the pressure of all those expectations be realized? Would all the corporate bigwigs throw their endorsement money at you? Would the world of tennis crown its new young queen? More important, would you get all the dates you want?

The future of women’s tennis giggled. She sounded a lot like a 14-year-old schoolgirl.

“Well, it would be great, but it wouldn’t be it ,” she said. “Mrs. Palmer, the headmaster at school, she hears me talk and she corrects me. She always corrects me. She knows everything I say.”

Capriati affected an authoritative voice.

“She says, ‘You’ve got to learn now that you’re going to be in the public a lot, so please act so they won’t think you’re stupid.’ She hears, like, everything.”

Like, OK. Maybe even one day Mrs. Palmer will be walking down the street with her former pupil, and people will turn and look. Maybe then Mrs. Palmer will hear the words by which Jennifer Capriati wants to be remembered.

“The greatest ever?”

Hey, like give it a few years.