Capriati Banishes a Miami Migraine

The surface and the countries were different, and so were the month and opponent. After that, everything started looking like Miami, an Art Deco nightmare.

It was happening again.

For Jennifer Capriati, there were 52 minutes between her first match point against Serena Williams and the fourth and final one. Fifty-two minutes to ponder the double fault on match point No. 1, and to consider the similarities to her eight squandered match points and loss against Venus Williams in the Miami final in March.

An unprintable expression floated through Capriati’s mind when her second serve floated into the net against Serena at the French Open. Her parents, Stefano and Denise, were remembering Miami and so were the fans in the crowded house of Court Suzanne Lenglen on Tuesday.

“I was just thinking, ‘Oh . . .! Probably even worse than that,” Capriati said. “I just tried to put it out of my mind.”

Capriati’s nerves and Serena’s iron will made it a suspenseful quarterfinal, even if the level of play hovered between erratic and abysmal. The fourth-seeded Capriati had more left in reserve, however, and defeated the tiring sixth-seeded Williams, 6-2, 5-7, 6-2, in 1 hour 58 minutes.

Playing Capriati in the semifinals will be No. 1 Martina Hingis of Switzerland. Two Belgian teenagers, No. 12 Kim Clijsters and No. 14 Justine Henin, will play in the other semifinal, the first for either in a Grand Slam event.

The three other quarterfinals were one-sided. Hingis defeated Francesca Schiavone of Italy, 6-1, 6-4; Henin beat Lina Krasnoroutskaya of Russia, 6-1, 6-2, in 50 minutes; and Clijsters dismissed qualifier Petra Mandula of Hungary, 6-1, 6-3.

Crown Prince Philippe of Belgium was at Roland Garros to witness the victories of Henin and Clijsters.

“I think it’s great for Belgian tennis,” Clijsters, who turns 18 on Friday, said of their advance. “It’s perfect. We’re both new up-and-coming tennis players.”

Capriati was a teenager herself, only 14, when she made history by reaching the French Open semifinals in her Grand Slam debut in 1990. So much has happened since then--her struggles through a period of rebellion, all in the public eye, and the long road back. She won the Australian Open in January, and has maintained a high level of consistency despite the tough loss in March to Venus Williams.

That defeat worked for her against Serena. Shortly after the Miami match, Capriati won the Family Circle Cup final against Hingis, got off the court and told her agent, Barbara Perry, that she had gotten rid of the Miami curse.

“I took more time,” Capriati said. “I didn’t rush. I didn’t get as nervous. I thought, ‘I’m not going to lose it being nervous. I’m just going to lose it going for it.’ That’s what I did. It worked.”

Said her coach and father, Stefano: “Miami goes through my mind. Players don’t go for the shot, you never win. Of course I was nervous, even a spectator would be nervous.”

Capriati lost the final four games of the second set, unraveling in a chaotic mess of double faults. She double-faulted 10 times, six times in the second set. Williams also had problems, serving eight double faults, and the opponents combined for 107 unforced errors.

What turned the match was the second game of the third set. Capriati was still shaky but managed to survive three break points on her serve and held. Instead of Williams taking a 2-0 lead, the score was 1-1, and the narrow escape enabled Capriati to find her groove.

“It was real important that I didn’t lose my serve in the second game,” Capriati said. “I tried not to get mad and panic at that point, tried not to think back in a previous match where things like that kind of happened.”

Capriati lost only one more game and erased the Miami memory, joking, “It was starting to become a nightmare a little bit.”

Said Williams: “I guess you can say she picked her game up a level. I should have been able to pick mine up also. I just wasn’t making the shots that I needed to be successful.”

But Williams, making a rare appearance in a clay-court event, had been sidelined since Miami and lacked serious match play. Her fitness level was suspect too.

“I think I was running well today,” she said, “but my serve wasn’t at all where I expected it to be. That’s OK. I’m going to rectify that for Wimbledon.”

Capriati still has possibly two more matches before she turns her attention to Wimbledon. She was thrilled to survive this difficult psychological test and blew kisses to the crowd afterward.

Beforehand, she had someone else on her mind. She walked onto the court and held up a small sign for the crowd and television cameras: “Get Well Soon Corina.” The sign was for tour player Corina Morariu, who was recently found to have a rare form of leukemia.

“It puts everything in perspective,” Capriati said. “It just shows that we’re there playing tennis, just trying to enjoy what we’re doing there and not take it so seriously. I really wanted to do something special for her. I hope she saw it.”

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