12 - The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, September 27, 1994

Capriati's anticipated return to tour postponed
Injury prevents teen pro from playing in European Indoors tourney

NEW YORK (AP) - Jennifer
Capriati's long-awaited return to ten-
nis is being delayed.
Capriati will not play the European
Indoors tournament at Zurich, Switzer-
land, next week because of a groin
injury, Linda Dozoretz, a publicist for
Capriati agent BarbaraPerry, said Mon-
day.
"I was really looking forward to
playing next week in Zurich and re-

turning to the tour," Capriati said."This
is disappointing, but I'm confident that
I will be playing again soon."
Earlier in the day, Dawn Biggins,
an assistant to Perry, said Capriati hadn't
withdrawn from the tournament. Perry
didn't return telephone messages left
Monday by The Associated Press.
In herlast match, Capriati lost in the
first round of the 1993 U.S. Open. She
had planned to return to the women's


U.

tour at Zurich.
Burned out by tennis and despair-
ing over her appearance and relation-
ships, Capriati told the newspaper she
once thought about killing herself.
Capriati, 18, said she had nightmares
after losing in the Open in 1991 and began
crying after her latest loss.
"I started out OK, but at the end of
the match I couldn't wait to get off the
court," she told the newspaper. "To-
tally, mentally, I just lost it, and obvi-
ously it goes deeperthan thatone match.
"I really was not happy with
myself, my tennis, my life, my par-
ents, my coaches, my friends. When
I looked in my mirror, I actually saw
this distorted image: I was so ugly
and fat, I just wanted to kill myself,
really."
"I was always expected to be at the
top, and if I didn't win, tome that meant
I was a loser," Capriati said. "I felt like
my parents and everybody else thought
that tennis was the way to make it in

life, they thought it was good, but I
thought no one knew or wanted to
know the person who was behind my
tennis life."
Now, she said, "It's just a game to
me now."
"I don't care about being No. 1, but
I'm ready and willing togive it a battle,
and that's what sports is all about.
There's no ending to my story yet."
Last November, Capriati moved
into her own apartment at Boca Raton,
Fla. Her legal problems began Dec. 10,
1993, when she was arrested for shop-
lifting; she says she accidentally took a
ring from a store.
On May 16, she was arrested in a
Coral Gables, Fla., motel and charged
with a misdemeanor drug possession.
She went into a 28-day treatment pro-
gram at Mount Sinai Medical Center in
Miami Beach, Fla.
Capriati said she realized last win-
ter that she wanted to play tennis again.

AP PHOTO
Eighteen-year-old Jennifer Capriati was set to return to the ATP tour this
weekend by playing in the European Indoors tournament in Zurich,
Switzerland. A groin injury has put her comeback on hold.


Lions look for emotional inspiration after loss

. ...

A

PONTIAC (AP) - Detroit Lions
coach Wayne Fontes is looking for
that one ingredient that can't be mea-
sured by stopwatches or statistics.
Fontes is looking for one of his
players to step up and take a vocal
leadership role.
"We have a lot of leaders, but we
don't have that one guy that everybody
will listen to," Fontes said Monday.
"I'm hoping somebody will step
up. If not, I may have to suit up my-
self."
Detroit has several veteran play-

ers who are respected by their team-
mates, but they prefer to lead by ex-
ample rather than taking a vocal role.
Lomas Brown, Kevin Glover and
Barry Sanders are naturally quiet. Chris
Spielman's rage burns inside. Scott
Mitchell hasn't been around long
enough to be willing to speak up.
Following Sunday's 23-17 loss to
New England that left Detroit at 2-2
with Tampa Bay up next, Fontes chal-
lenged his players.
"If you think your partner next to
you didn't give enough of himself to

make the play, be a man and go up and
tell him about it," Fontes said.
Fontes was afraid that the Lions
might not be at the emotional peak they
were when they beat Dallas 20-17 in
overtime the week before.
"I could tell when we came out that
we weren't as ready as we were for
Dallas. I could sense it coming out of
the lockerroom," Fontes said. "That's
one of the reasons I went for it on fourth
down (on Detroit's first possession of
the game). I thought that might give us
some momentum if we made it."

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The Lions' locker room was sub-
dued Monday when the players dressed
after a brief morning workout. It was a
far cry from the atmosphere after the
upset of the two-time Super Bowl cham-
pion Cowboys.
"The highs are never as high as the
lows are low," Fontes said. "Losses
lingerlonger than wins, but by Wednes-
day when we go out on that practice
field, it'll have to be out of our sys-
tem."
Most of the players accepted their
share of the blame for the defeat, in-
cluding Mitchell, who had just a so-so
performance at quarterback with 14-
of-29 passing for 189 yards and two
interceptions.
"A lot of the responsibility for the
offense is definitely on my shoulders,"
Mitchell said. "We have to sustain
drives and make the plays."
Mitchell refused to blame the Li-
ons' offensive scheme for the club's
inability to score more points against
New England, which came into the
game ranked last in the NFL in total
defense.
"What we're doing is sound. We
can't panic and change everything. We
just have to get into the best possible
situation to make the plays," Mitchell
said. "We have good ideas and a good
system. The players just have to ex-
ecute it. We can't start getting down on
each other, but there's no question in
my mind that we should have won
yesterday."
Although he stopped short of say-
ing he was disappointed in Mitchell's
performance through the first four
games, Fontes said that the quarter-
back has to do more.
"The quarterback, more than any-
body, has to step up and make the
plays," Fontes said: "In (Sunday's)
Kansas City-Rams game, they said
(Joe) Montana wasn't feeling well and
he was inconsistent and (the Chiefs)
lost. That position has to win games."
Los Angeles beat Kansas City, 16-
0.
Mitchell has completed more than
50 percent of his passes in only one
game - the opener against Atlanta -
but Fontes is confident he'll develop
the consistency Detroit was looking for
when it signed him as a free agent last
winter.
"I thinkhe' ll getbetterandbetter,"
the coach said. "He could still have
one or two more games like that one,
but even with that type of game we had
a chance to win if we'd caught a couple
balls."
Fontes hopes to have nose guard
Marc Spindler, who has missed the
first four games because of an ankle
injury, back to practice this week. But
receiver Herman Moore sprained an
ankle and knee in Sunday's game and
is questionable.
Michigan's
Hilton to
play on U.S..
junior team
From staff reports
Junior Kevin Hilton has been