Capriati may not back up
By Paul Malone
January 6, 2004
DUAL Melbourne Park champion Jennifer Capriati is in doubt for the Australian Open and is undergoing extensive treatment for back injuries in Florida.
Capriati withdrew yesterday from this week's rich women's exhibition tournament in Hong Kong, citing "back injuries".
The popular American is likely to decide over the weekend whether her back will allow her to submit to the punishing Grand Slam conditions she mastered in Melbourne in 2001 and 2002.
Tennis Australia spokesman John Lindsay said tournament organisers had no information yesterday about the state of Capriari's back.
Capriati has been a frequent entrant in the main Australian Open warm-up event, Sydney's adidas International, but she had previously elected to join Serena Williams as the only members of the world's top 10 women to bypass the Sunday tournament start at Homebush Bay.
Capriati, 27, will be keen to play the Australian Open as uncertainty remains about the title claims or availability of the Williams sisters and she won the second of her Melbourne titles off a one-match preparation when she lost a shabby first-round match in Sydney a week earlier.
The Hong Kong exhibition event is scheduled to start tomorrow with Venus Williams advertised to play her first matches since she lost the Wimbledon final in early July to younger sister Serena. Injuries to both Williams sisters kept them sidelined until September, when the shooting death of their half-sister Yetunde Price made tennis a low priority for them.
The most recent information Australian Open organisers say they have received about the sisters from their agent is that they intend to end a six-month break from tournament play at Melbourne Park.
The tough task facing Australia in its April Fed Cup tie in Russia was laid out when Russian No. 4 Vera Zvonareva won an impressive opening match of her Australian summer at the Uncle Tobys Hardcourts at the Gold Coast yesterday.
Zvonareva, ranked 13th in the world, dismissed former top-10 player Barbara Schett, of Austria, 6-1, 6-4.
Zvonareva, fourth among the nine Russian women ranked in the world's top 40, beat Venus Williams at the French Open before losing to compatriot Nadia Petrova, the second seed at the Gold Coast.
Herald Sun
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