Stevenson Is a Revelation

On the day Alexandra Stevenson became the first woman to advance from qualifying to the Wimbledon semifinals, Julius Erving confirmed that, yes, he is Stevenson’s mystery father.

Samantha Stevenson, Alexandra’s mother and a freelance journalist who has written about tennis for the New York Times and who was writing about the Philadelphia 76ers when Dr. J became the father of Samantha’s future tennis star, has become as big a part of this 1999 Wimbledon as any player here.

Welcome to the world of teenage tennis stars and their dysfunctional families.

As a journalist, as recently as three weeks ago, Samantha was leaving her daughter’s match at a Wimbledon warmup tournament near London to write the story of Damir Dokic, father of Jelena and, it turns out, opponent of Alexandra in the quarterfinals Friday. Damir was getting himself ejected from the tournament and eventually arrested for belligerent behavior, another unruly, out-of-control tennis parent.

Samantha wrote that story for the New York Times. Some would call that a conflict of interest, the parent of one competitor writing about the parent of another.

Then Samantha put her own name in the news by making controversial comments about life in women’s tennis.

Through all this, Alexandra has cheerfully wandered into today’s semifinal match with fellow Southern Californian Lindsay Davenport. How she has done this is either very good or maybe very sad.

Alexandra says she is “oblivious” to the whole world debating her parentage, buzzing about the story that broke in the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel that said Erving’s name was on Alexandra’s birth certificate as the father. Quite a story, quite a buzz: One of our country’s most famous and respected athletes and her mother conceived Alexandra out of wedlock.

This has seemed to the 18-year-old Alexandra to be much less important than matching John McEnroe’s run from qualifier to Wimbledon semifinalist in 1977, less interesting than talking about her own musical and acting abilities. When Alexandra finished off her 6-3, 1-6, 6-3 victory over another qualifier, the 16-year-old Dokic, Alexandra sweetly curtsied to each of the four sides of Court 1, as if the spectators were all royalty.

Some saw this as a genuinely emotional response to a dramatic moment. Some saw it as another part of a careful script crafted by a calculating mother and if it sounds cynical to think this, then some of the blame must go to Samantha Stevenson.

She has spent this week keeping herself in a very bright spotlight, although she has since chosen to respond mostly with two words to anyone who has asked about those statements or about her reaction to the story of Alexandra’s father.

“No comment,” Samantha keeps saying, even as she attends each news conference Alexandra holds, never backing away from the cameras.

You begin to get a sick feeling about this. Has Samantha, a journalist herself and well aware of how media sensations are created and nurtured--knowing exactly how all this commotion over her daughter would enhance marketability even if Alexandra hadn’t kept winning--somehow planned all of this?

It’s impossible to believe that Samantha didn’t believe someone would decide to find out who Alexandra’s father is. Rumors have been around for several years that the father of this black daughter of a white mother was a well-known athlete. As Alexandra’s tennis talent became more and more evident, there was no way this secret would be kept. And if there had been a way, it was not for Samantha to push herself forward as a moral critic of the women of the WTA Tour.

In today’s women’s semifinals we’ll have Steffi Graf, whose father has been imprisoned for tax evasion and was once tabloid fodder himself for a relationship with a German Playboy model.

And we’ll have Mirjana Lucic, who has a restraining order out against her father, Marinko. Lucic has accused him of physical and mental abuse and moved with her mother and brothers and sisters from Croatia to Florida.

We’ll have the Stevensons, Alexandra on the court and Samantha in the stands, a day after Dr. J has said Alexandra is his daughter and he has met her only once, when she was 3.

Oh, yes, and Lindsay Davenport. Nice as can be with her quietly supportive but mostly invisible parents and her normal life. Huh? Must be a mistake.

For all that, Davenport has been barely seen on television, barely mentioned in stories.

Samantha Stevenson is not dumb after all. She knows how to get into the news. So she created some. She created a star tennis player who was hitting hundreds of tennis balls off walls as a 4-year-old and who had premier athletic genes.

Friday afternoon, as Alexandra sat on a set speaking to ESPN, Samantha talked about her daughter.

“There’s no stage in the world like Wimbledon,” Samantha said. “I’ve told her there’s no stage in the world like this. Since she was a little girl, she’s always wanted to be on a stage as an actress. I’ve told her, ‘This is where the stage is, Alexandra. This is your life, then you go out and do it.’ ”

Diane Pucin can be reached at her e-mail address: diane.pucin@latimes.com.