Tennis: Capriati sets return date after year off

JENNIFER CAPRIATI, who has not played for a year, plans to return to the women's tour next month. In a two-sentence statement, Capriati's agent, Barbara Perry, of IMG, announced in Cleveland, Ohio, that wild cards had been requested for two tournaments in October.

Capriati is expected to make her return at the Barilla Indoors in Zurich which begins on 3 October. A wild card entry has also been requested for the Tennis Grand Prix in Filderstadt, Germany, the following week.

The 18-year-old Capriati, whose drug arrest in May cast doubt on whether she would ever return, has not played since her first- round defeat at the 1993 US Open.

After being given a special dispensation to make her debut 10 days before her 14th birthday in 1990, Capriati set records for prodigious feats. She was a semi-finalist at Wimbledon, in Paris and New York, and won an Olympic gold medal in Barcelona in 1992 - beating Steffi Graf in the final - before showing signs of stress, known in the sport as 'burn out'.

The former world No 6 left the tour to go back to school earlier this year and was then arrested for shoplifting and later underwent a rehabilitation programme for drug abuse.