There will be no Dr. J sighting at the U. S. Open during this fortnight. That much is as sure as Flushing Meadows parking headaches the next two weeks.
Julius Erving, the Magic executive and former Nets and 76ers superstar, is not going to be here to watch his daughter Alexandra Stevenson attempt to grab Flushing by the throat like she grabbed the All-England Lawn and Tennis Club earlier this summer.
“There’s nothing between the two other than that he’s her father,” said Stevenson’s coach Craig Kardon, who found out with the rest of the world during Wimbledon the identity of Stevenson’s father. “There’s no relationship and there’s never been a relationship. She’s happy the way things are. It’s always been this way.”
Lore has it Stevenson has been around Dr. J just once, when she was about 4. Samantha Stevenson, 50, an eccentric and outspoken free-lance journalist, raised Alexandra as a single mother. She had a brief affair with the married Erving when writing about the 76ers in the early 1980s.
All you need to know about how the 18-year-old, 6-foot phenom feels about her biological father comes out of this exchange between Alexandra and Samantha a week-and-a-half ago in front of a USA Today reporter at a Toronto restaurant. Alexandra got angry when her mother kept referring to Erving as “father” and “dad.”
“Mommy, you know we don’t use those words,” Alexandra snapped. “A father is somebody who nurtures and cares for you. He’s someone who changes your diaper. He didn’t do that.”
“I’m my mother’s daughter,” she said. “I’m not the Doctor’s daughter. And why is he called Doctor anyway? He doesn’t have a medical degree.”
Ouch.
Following that episode, reporters were warned before interviews – under stern instructions from Samantha – not to ask Alexandra anything about Dr. J. The bitterness toward Erving, however, is not shared by Mom.
“Her father was never, ever put in a bad light,” Samantha said last week in Toronto. “I’ve told her stories her whole life about his heritage, the championship moments, his leadership on the court. He’s a legend but she doesn’t understand the reality of what that legend is.”
The spotlight appears to be worrying Samantha’s entourage, although Alexandra seems unbothered. Stevenson, who miraculously charged from qualifiers into the Wimbledon semifinals before getting bombed by Lindsay Davenport, hasn’t won a match since England. She even failed to come out of qualifiers last weekend to compete in the singles draw of the WTA event in New Haven.
A half-dozen interviews that had been pre-arranged days before were abruptly canceled on Tuesday evening. According to a source, the 43rd-ranked Alexandra became distraught over a private matter. The coach had seen enough.
“I’m to blame,” Kardon said. “She needs to focus on her tennis.”
Although later on, Kardon admitted, “She loves the attention. She reacts pretty well to it.”
Indeed, Stevsnson was as graceful and “bubbly” off the court as on at Wimbledon, handling the Dr. J revelations with aplomb and also saving her mother from further ridicule. Samantha, doing her best impersonation of Richard Williams, claimed her daughter was the victim of racism at a junior tournament a year ago and alleged “rampant lesbianism” on the WTA tour as the reason she travels with Alexandra as chaperone.
“I liked how she was very willing to mop up for her mom,” CBS tennis maven Mary Carillo said. “She did a good job of defusing things and allowed it to go away as delicately as possible. Because there were some stupid things said.”
Although Carillo calls Alexandra “green” and “raw” and one who makes a ton of “rookie mistakes,” she loves how Alexandra embraces the spotlight. Alexandra has said often how excited she is about playing the Open and can’t wait to perform before crowds who will be cheering her every move.
“The New York crowd can be rough too and she’s prepared for that also,” Kardon said.
“She certainly seems to like the limelight and that’s a good sign,” Carillo said. “Some players [shrinkl] under the glare of the spotlight. She seeks it out.”
The sense in the Stevenson camp is if she could get by her first match, she could make another dramatic run. Stevens faces slumping-but-seeded Nathalie Tauziat in the first round. The scouting report on Stevenson is she’s a powerful all-court player, hits harder than Davenport but doesn’t have good speed. Remember, this is a player who was ready to accept a scholarship to UCLA in the spring before posting solid grass results in Wimbledon tuneups.
“[Alexandra] has the ability to beat anybody,” Kardon said. “If she wins the first match, anything can happen and will happen. She needs that confidence. She’s no fluke.”
Certainly there is an uptightness in her camp as Stevenson heads into the Open with everyone watching. Everyone watching but Dr. J.
