Austin, overall, has been a success story. Though she was struggling with back injuries and sciatica by the time she was 21, she won the US Open at 16. Today, she is happily married and works as a television commentator.
Jaeger was seeded at Wimbledon at the age of 15 and played Billie Jean King in the final three years later. At 19, she used a shoulder injury – her father at one point suggested she had feigned it – as a springboard to going to college and studying theology. She said later that she had found it difficult to reconcile the narrow-minded focus of a top player with her desire to help others.
Capriati, meantime, made her professional debut at 14 and cracked the top ten that year. Between 1990 and 1993, she won six titles including the Australian and French Opens but, by the end of ‘93, she was burnt out and up on charges of shop-lifting and drug-taking. In June of this year, she was hospitalised after taking an overdose of prescribed medication.
By the time Martina Hingis came along, she would have been bound by new rules which staggered the number of events a girl could play between the age of 14 and 18.
