Jennifer Capriati drops out of the Open due to an eye operation

Jennifer Capriati had to abandon the Australian Open during the first round because of the laser treatment she underwent on her eyes after the women's Masters at Los Angeles last November and which prevented her from training as she would have wished.

The aim of the operation was to eliminate the pterygium caused by exposure to the sun. After more than a month, Jennifer was still unable to use either eye without the protection of sunglasses and a visor.

'I lived in the dark for two weeks', the tennis player said. "In no way could I expose myself to sunlight, my eyes were too sensitive'. Convalescence was too short, training insufficient. "Had I not been the reigning champion I would not have taken part".

The disorder that has afflicted the former child prodigy (pterygium comes from the Greek and means "small insect wing", because of its appearance) is a degeneration of the conjunctival stroma with replacement by thickened elastotic fibers that extend onto the cornea. It normally affects adults and is more commonly encountered in warm, dry climates, mainly at 37° latitudes north and south of the equator.

The most significant factors in its development are as much to do with heredity as the type of activity carried out by those afflicted: it appears that the incidence is greater in people who are exposed for long periods to outdoor elements and in particular to ultraviolet light, solar radiation and oxygen in the air.

At the start of symptoms, the pterygium (located mainly nasally in the interpalpebral space) appears macroscopically as a film which extends horizontally onto the cornea. Ptergyia are often asymptomatic, not very extensive and non-progressive; more often, however, they slowly advance in a centripetal direction and invade the pupil, causing (apart from aesthetic damage) astigmatism, diplopia and blurred vision.