Jennifer Capriati does not wish to talk about comebacks any more. And why should she? By reaching her first grand slam final, the former teenage prodigy has not so much recaptured her glory days as surpassed them.
Capriati beat her compatriot, the defending champion Lindsay Davenport, 6-3 6-4 here yesterday to set up a showdown with Martina Hingis and at a stroke went from sentimental favourite to potential winner of the title and with it some £320,000 sterling. Of course she has to beat Hingis first, and judging by the way the top seed saw off Venus Williams 6-1 6-1 in the day's other semi-final that will not be easy.
It was sweet revenge for Capriati's straight-sets defeat by Davenport here at the same stage last year. The rest of the world may be surprised to see her in the final reckoning but she is not.
"I've always felt that I belonged there," she said, beaming, "but I never wanted to think about it too much. It's such a long process, it takes so much to get to this point."
It is going on 11 years since Capriati emerged on the professional tour as a 14-year-old bristling with talent and superficial self-confidence, who was immediately hailed as one to watch.
The world duly watched as she powered to three grand slam semi-finals, and watched again as the weight of all that expectation slowly began to crush her. When her career ground to a halt, splashed across the tabloids, she became a living cautionary tale, a has-been at 17.
Nowadays the 24-year-old Capriati still talks like a teenager, her conversation peppered with "Ya'knows" and "Like, maybes", but so much has changed that she regards those days as part of another lifetime. "Let's talk about now and today," she said. "I think that monkey's been off my back for a while."
She has certainly proved that now, but it did take some shifting. After five years of slowly working her way back to form and fitness she appears finally to have found some balance in her tennis and in her personal life.
Against Davenport, the two Jennifer Capriatis were both to be seen, the thrilling raw talent of 11 years ago and the thoughtful, more cautious Capriati of today, spotting Davenport's weaknesses and pouncing on them.
Afterwards a disappointed Davenport was not buying into the emotional scenes that surrounded Capriati's win. She hugged and kissed the tearful victor at the net but that was it. "Well, I wasn't going to hit her," she snapped. "But I'm not happy she's in the final. I want to be there."
Venus Williams knows just how she feels. Williams put in one of her worst performances of recent years, Hingis put in one of her best, and the result was the most abject defeat of the Olympic champion's career. Hingis, like Capriati, has worked hard on her fitness and no matter what happens now she will at least have proved she can beat the Williams sisters back to back.
The Swiss will have watched Davenport's demise with interest, and probably a smile. Instead of playing her greatest rival, the world number one will be up against a player she has beaten five of six times.
Nothing about Andre Agassi can ever be taken for granted. After winning the Australian Open here last year, his sixth grand slam title, he reached only two more finals during 2000.
So it would have been perfectly fair to assume that the Las Vegas legend, who turns 31 in April, had possibly won his last major title. This may still be so, although few now expect him to lose the final here on Sunday.
For the second time in a major match, the first being his opening singles in the Davis Cup final last December, local favourite Pat Rafter fell victim to cramp and Agassi prevailed 7-5 2-6 6-7 6-2 63. Rafter did not have to retire, but he was a sitting duck from halfway through the fourth set of yesterday's semi-final.
