Developing Capriati’s Groundstrokes

Some of the best groundstrokes ever? Jennifer Capriati has some of the best groundstrokes of anyone ever to play the game of tennis. In my opinion, they are perfectly suited for the women’s game. And I’ll tell you why. Developing Capriati I like to look down the road. In 1987, when Jennifer came to me at age 10, I could see where women’s tennis was going. It was going away from a game based on consistency to a game based on weapons. I had seen this kid named Monica Seles play. I saw that she could be great. Then there was Steffi Graf. And we talked early on about developing Jennifer’s game so that some day she could beat Steffi. I mean we actually talked about that at age 10. I wasn’t worrying about Jennifer winning the 12 and under tournaments in Florida. Her dad Stefano didn’t want those type of trophies and neither did I. There was a bigger picture, because the kid had talent. I wanted Jennifer to develop weapons. The problem when Jennifer started with me was that she was playing five or six feet behind the baseline, like Chris Evert. At that time she seemed almost…