Capriati To Skip Wimbledon

Jennifer Capriati, whose attempts to jumpstart her troubled career have apparently sputtered to a halt again, is expected to announce today that a strained back muscle and a lack of grass-court preparation have forced her to withdraw from Wimbledon.

Capriati, 20, has not competed at Wimbledon, where she reched the 1991 semifinals at age 15, since 1993. Capriati abandoned her professional career after a first-round loss at the 1993 U.S. Open, but this year she started a comeback that has been sporadic.

In her first return to the Grand Slam scene last month at the French Open, Capriati, who arrived in Paris nervous and without a coach, foundered in the first round.

A distraught Capriati created more unflattering headlines for herself four days later when she became involved in a brawl with her boyfriend and a waitress at a Tampa, Fla., bar.

Despite the fracas, the 104th-ranked Capriati had been practicing for Wimbledon and, according to her father, Stefano, seemed set on competing.

Capriati made her decision to pass up Wimbledon even before learning of her unenviable first-round draw of Lori McNeil, the same dangerous floater who sank Steffi Graf’s quest for a fourth straight Wimbledon crown in 1994 by ambushing the top-seeded player in the first round.

The event has regained its 1992 runner-up, Monica Seles, after an involuntary three-year absence, but another familiar face, Gabriela Sabatini of Argentina, is skipping Wimbledon. The pulled stomach muscle that caused Sabatini to skip the French Open has forced her to miss Wimbledon for the first time in 12 years. Sabatini, whose only Grand Slam title came at the 1990 U.S. Open, has dropped out of the top 10 for the first time in a decade.

Sabatini sustained the injury while practicing her serve in Key Biscayne, Fla., in mid-April and has since been convalescing, and taking singing lessons, at home in Buenos Aires.

According to Sabatini’s agent, Dick Dell, rumors that the 26-year-old player was ready to trade in her racquet to launch a new career as a chanteuse are unfounded.

“There’s no retirement,” said Dell, who did admit that Sabatini had been plagued by “motivation problems” earlier this season. Dell said the layoff appeared to have rekindled Sabatini’s interest in tennis, and that she and her coach, Juan Nunez, will resume a full practice schedule this week to prepare for the Olympics next month in Atlanta.