Capriati sees clearly the cause of her surprise defeat

Jennifer Capriati appears fated to make history at the Australian Open. Two years ago she starred in a fairy tale by winning her first grand slam title here more than a decade after turning professional.

Yesterday, going for a hat-trick of titles, she became the first defending champion to lose in the first round. Not since Steffi Graf lost to Lori McNeil at Wimbledon in 1994 has a champion fallen at the first hurdle at a grand slam tournament.

The redness in Capriati's eyes after her 2-6, 7-6, 6-4 defeat at the hands of Marlene Weingartner, ranked 90th in the world, might have been mistaken for disappointment. In fact it was a consequence of the eye surgery she had in November, from which she admitted she had barely recovered before travelling to Australia.

Lacking fitness, toning and, more important, match practice, Capriati was in no state to deal with the 22-year-old German.

"Obviously the recovery time wasn't enough and I feel like I just didn't give myself enough time to fully prepare," Capriati said. "If I wasn't defending champion I probably wouldn't have showed up and I probably should have considered that."

Capriati underwent a procedure during the off-season to correct pterygiums on both eyes, cataract-like films which had grown over the corneas to the point where she had no choice but to resort to the surgeon's knife. The condition arises from too much time spent in the glare of the sun and is common in tennis players, golfers and those who live in tropical climates.

To consider such a radical procedure so close to a tournament she has won the last two years suggests the problems had become career-threatening.

"I couldn't see properly and they were only getting worse," she said. "I think waiting another year would have been too late."

Playing in the evening in the full glare of floodlights can scarcely have made Capriati's job easier. Weingartner, too, played her part. She fought gamely after going a set and 4-1 down and hit back with a combination of verve, nerve and nous. She was smart enough to take advantage when the American's lack of condition began to catch up with her as the match wore on.

Capriati now heads back to Florida to continue her recovery.

"I spent two weeks basically in the dark because I couldn't be in the sunlight as my eyes were so sensitive," she said.

Venus Williams came perilously close to going the same way as Capriati and without such a good excuse. Williams stuttered through her 6-4, 6-2 first-round win over Svetlana Kuznetsova, coming from two breaks down in the first set. Had the 17-year-old Russian been a little more experienced, Williams might well have been bundled out.

Williams was a little vague afterwards as to how she had been filling her time while her rivals spent the festive season pounding balls and getting in shape. Judging by the way she played against the Kuznetsova, it was not practising.

Anna Kournikova can expect a tough time in her next match, against the fifth seed Justine Henin-Hardenne. It is a measure of how far Kournikova has slipped that her 6-1, 6-2 win over Slovakia's Henrieta Nagyova was her first win in a grand slam event since reaching the quarter-finals here two years ago. That said, it was also one of her best performances in any tournament since the days when she was more than just a pretty face.

Lindsay Davenport's 6-2, 6-1 win over Camille Pin was not enough to cause a stir but after nine months out through injury last year the American says she is beginning to feel like her old self. That spells trouble for anyone in her way.