"You're not only a wonderful example for youth," the French television commentator gushed to Jennifer Capriati, "but to all mankind."

Say -- you know, I mean, like -- WHAT?

OK, so The Capster pummeled the No. 1-ranked player, Martina Hingis, yet again -- this time 6-4, 6-3 in the semifinals of the French Open. So on a chilly, gusty afternoon she bravely disregarded a balky knee and seven double faults to whisk through a terrible match and close out the thing just before the rains deluged Roland Garros.

So she's one match shy -- a final on Saturday against Belgium's 17-year old Kim Clijsters in which she'll be as big a favorite as the, uh, Lakers -- from being halfway to the Grand Slam. So the Florida flame has recovered from her wayward teenage, drug-bleery years to concoct one of sport's niftiest touchy, tingly comeback stories and to become, at 25, surely the best player in the world. (Hingis admitted as such afterward.) Let's not make our formerly beloved "Jen-Jen" doll, Madame Curie, just yet.

"Right now I just want to scream at the top of my lungs, I'm so excited. There's not much more I can say," Capriati fairly gurgled afterward. But she isn't giggling like the old days anymore; in fact, she was composed enough to delineate just how she's been able to focus on a training regimen which she's used to surpass the comparatively tiny Hingis, as well as the practitioners of "Big Babe Tennis" -- the Williams Sisters, Lindsay Davenport, Amelie Mauresmo, Mary Pierce and all the rest.

"I just changed my attitude about it," Capriati said of her work ethic which apparently toned up her mind as well as her body. "I started to enjoy it more than dread it, the workouts. I thought it's going to get me in better shape, it's going to make me lose weight, it's going to make me look better. You know, that's a good incentive also."

The Capster was doubtless not contemplating these Oprah moments while she was picking Hingis apart for the third straight time. "She overwhelmed me today, too good," said the devastated loser of both the championships of Australia (in January) and South Carolina, where Capriati's three-set triumph in Charleston was a clay hint of things to come in Paris.

The first five times the two women met, the now 20-year old Swiss Miss won. But that was during the early stages of Capriati's comeback, a good part of which was spent fat, happy and googly-eyed in the presence of her boyfriend, Belgium's then budding star, Xavier Malisse. But Malisse-Capriati turned out to be a sneakered version of Kurt Cobain-Courtney Love. Not that either over-dosed, scribbled some last rites or turned perpetually skanky -- they just couldn't win any tennis matches anymore.

When Capriati got rid of the pony-tailed X-Boy and started concentrating on all-court X and O's, she started to regain focus. Her power-hungry, paranoid father, Stefano, came back onto the set as coach. (OK, not everything about this fairytale is perfect.) And Jennifer streamlined her lifestyle, combined her terrific innate skills with a nasty streetfighter mentality and set about fulfilling her vast potential.

Remember, this is one of the absolutely most famous sports children of all time. But from late 1993 to '97, she nearly disappeared from tennis altogether, busted for shoplifting (she probably could have purchased the mall) and pot and who-knows-what-else, jailed and relegated to rehab; that tragic, ring-nosed, police mug shot was her only legacy. Even when Capriati returned to the tour, the biggest news was when she punched out her boyfriend?

"I guess it's been a long time," Capriati acknowledged. "I never knew, since the semifinals when I got here at 14 (in 1989) if it would ever come again. It wasn't looking that way, like, a few years ago? So I guess, I mean, that makes it sweetest. But also just because the way I'm playing, the way I'm into the finals. This is the best tennis I've ever played."

Not to mention the best she's talked. Maybe, also, like, ever. Capriati's statistician, Mark Winters of Oakland-based Inside Tennis, recorded a tournament-low 18 "You Know's" in her post-match interview. But Jennifer didn't disappoint in the other category, recovering with a tournament-high 16 "I Mean's" -- "just like on the court, she was all balance today," said Winters.

The Capster's French Open totals now stand at 121 (YK's) and 54 (IM's) in 79 questions -- with one match to go.

Upon further review, French TV had it just about right. Only it's, like, you know, womankind.

Curry Kirkpatrick, a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine, first covered the French Open in 1976. E-mail him at curry.kirkpatrick@espnmag.com.