Capriati reaches new heights

Capriati's success in 2001 has taken her to the top

BBC Sport Online charts Jennifer Capriati's path from teen rebel to world number one.

Jennifer Capriati's remarkable rise to the pinnacle of world tennis has not been a steady one.

After breaking on to the scene as a teenager 11 years ago, her career seemed to be over in 1994 when she was arrested for possession of cannabis and shoplifting.

Disllusioned and worn out by a life on the circuit that she had started in her early teens, she gave up tennis for a while before eventually making a comeback.

The extent of her transformation has not been lost on Capriati.

  Capriati's highs and lows

1990: Aged 14 she becomes youngest Grand Slam semi-finalist ever at the French Open

1991: Becomes youngest ever Wimbledon semi-finalist aged just 15

1992: Wins Olympic gold in Barcelona

1994: Cautioned for possession of marijuana

1998: Wins first Grand Slam match for five years at Wimbledon

1999: Wins first title for seven years at Strasbourg

2000: Gets back into the world top 16

2001: Wins Australian and French Open titles

2001: Becomes world number one

"This is unbelievable. I never thought I would be able to say to myself that I was number one," she said.

"Even if it's just for one day, it's great."

It is her stunning form in 2001 that has taken her to the top of the game.

The 25-year-old became only the fifth woman to claim both French and Australian Open title in the same year.

She also reached the semi-finals at Wimbledon and the US Open.

These results justify the reputation Capriati established early in her career, when she was singled out as a star of the future.

In 1990, aged 14, she became the youngest ever semi-finalist in Grand Slam history when she made the last four at Roland Garros.

Weeks later, she was the youngest ever seed at Wimbledon and the youngest to win a main draw match there.

Capriati has now fulfilled her teenage potential

Then, still aged 14, she was the youngest player to be ranked in the top 10.

In 1991, aged 15, she had become the youngest Wimbledon semi-finalist.

At the Barcelona Olympics the following year she defeated Steffi Graf to take gold.

But Capriati came to resent the price she had paid for success, angered at the way she had sacrificed her childhood and lost her freedom.

Her career and her life spiralled out of control. She rebelled, perhaps trying to relive the teenage years she felt had been denied her.

The tabloids wasted no time covering the implosion of one of tennis' brightest stars, and police photographs on front pages around the world captured her tearful and anguished face.

But Capriati battled back from her personal crisis.

She refused to quit the game and continued to work hard to reclaim her lost status as one of its brightest young talents, and in 1998 she gave a hint of what was to come in 2000 and 2001.

At Wimbledon, she won her first match at a Grand Slam since making the 1993 French Open quarter-finals.

Wins at the Australian and French Open this year gave her the chance to win what would have been one of the more remarkable grand slams.

She did not manage it - she lost in the Wimbledon semi-final to Justine Henin.

But her good form has continued, and now Capriati becomes only the ninth woman to hold the world number one spot since the computer rankings system was introduced in 1975.

It is a happy ending to a remarkable story - and evidence that there is almost certainly more for her to achieve.