NEWPORT, R.I. -- It's a little frightening how life can get in the way of a great tennis career.

That's what I always thought anyway, when any mention of Jennifer Capriati came up. We all know her backstory, the one that stretched all the way from the most heralded prodigy the sport has ever known to a player whose cruel twist of fate took her out of the game and into what seemed like a lifetime of gloom. No matter how triumphant her return was with those three Grand Slams, a world No. 1 ranking and an Olympic gold medal, I could never get past the disappointment and downfall of such a breathtaking talent. Why did she have to hit rock bottom for so long before finding her way back? Why did shoplifting and drug abuse and rehabilitation have to take precedence over not only a prosperous lifestyle, but a glamorous one?

But Saturday, as she stood in front of a packed house at the International Tennis Hall of Fame, a tearful Capriati carefully expressed the pride she took in her career -- especially her comeback. She told us that her legacy in tennis is not her wins, her titles or her records, but her fight. Her unrelenting fight even when the rest of the world thought her grand career was shattered into smithereens. Capriati explained that no matter how far she fell, her love for the game was never compromised. And then it started to make some sense.

It all came back to that P-word that's so overused in sport but at the same time so undervalued: perspective. Capriati's personal nadir was the driving force behind her ultimate success. When we lost faith, Capriati stood firm in her belief that this script was far from finished. Her despair and hardships were merely a small (but significant) chapter in a story that ended with her hoisting her Hall of Fame diploma, hardware only bestowed on the game's very best.

Monica Seles, who introduced Capriati on Saturday, summed it up best: sheer determination. And after all the travails along the way, tennis challenged Capriati to be better, to learn, to grow and to brush aside the past. Capriati always believed in herself. And though the path to fulfilling her potential was complicated, if not turbulent at times, Capriati never gave up on her dream.

Capriati was the sports has-been long before her career even took off. Eight years had passed from the time she made her (in)famous debut on the cover of Sports Illustrated. But as she said during her cathartic acceptance speech, tennis is all about timing. In 2001, Capriati mounted her comeback. She won the first two legs of the Slam season in Melbourne and Paris. And though her timing hitting that fuzzy little ball was nearly impeccable during that memorable swing, Capriati was alluding to the bigger picture, the one that started and ended with her decision to focus on the process of winning. She took great pride in the effort it took to reach the game's summit. The trophies were merely an affirmation of her hard work and belief.

So what if Capriati had strung together a pristine past instead of the one fraught with trouble and setbacks? Would she have compiled a hall-of-fame résumé? Would her love for the game have lasted as long as it did? Would she have stood tall and proud at the podium as she did Saturday in Newport, where she spoke with such zeal about the joys both on and off the court?

It's hard to say for sure. But Capriati showed little anguish for all those lost years. She showed little remorse or atonement for a career that was largely overshadowed by tabloids, darkness and mug shots. Instead, she took satisfaction in her ability to transform herself into the player the world unfairly demanded she be at the ripe age of 13. And good for her.

To some, life probably does get in the way of a great tennis career. But for Capriati, a great tennis career is just part of life.