Capriati lost to Martinez after ankle injury

By Etienne Stekelenburg
October 17 2002

After a poor result at Filderstadt Jennifer Capriati just doesn’t seem to find her form. A holiday and being ill for a week didn’t do Capriati good at Filderstadt and being the top seed at Zurich was a seed to high. After treatment in the second set there was no hope for a good result in Zurich.

"I had problems getting into the match," Capriati said. "I would have rather had no bye and played in the first round. I would even have preferred to play in the qualifiers."

The first set turned out to be very demoralizing for Capriati. She was broken three times with impressive play by the Spanish veteran Martinez who made her WTA debut at the age of 16 in 1988 at Roland Garros.

At the start of the second set Capriati needed treatment after she twisted her ankle. Martinez breaks Capriati’s serve to take a 4:2 lead. Capriati never had the chance to do something about being well behind and Martinez outplayed the Australian Open champ to finish the match.

Belgian Justine Henin won a confident match
against Anna Smashnova of Israel. "I am very satisfied with my game," Henin said. "You always have to be patient against Smashnova and I feel I played very well."

Justine Henin, who lost to promissing Swiss Myriam Casanova only last week, played her first match after getting a bye against Smashnova to win it 6:3 6:1.

Henin will now face the other promissing Swiss wild card Mikaelian.