But come the big ones - the Majors, the Grand Slams - the mask of anonymity is whipped off.

It should have been a glorious week for Alexandra Stevenson at Wimbledon but, like the parents of Mary Pierce, Tiger Woods and Jelena Dokic, her mother had far too much clap in her trap.

Admittedly, Stevenson, Pierce, Woods and Dokic have all - in public at least - stood by their parents but the media, who influence if not formulate the opinions of most sports fans, have collected ammunition from other players, packed it in cluster bombs and dropped it on pages throughout the world.

Stevenson, 18, started Wimbledon as an unknown and ended it as a supposed target of racist players and predatory lesbians, the illegitimate child of a well-known basketball player and, oh yes, the first qualifier in the woman's draw to reach the semi-finals.

And all because mommy dearest Samantha Stevenson, a sportswriter who seemingly took building up player relations a bit literally when following the fortunes of the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers nearly two decades ago, decided to let rip with a few verbal volleys.

Her comments that daughter Alexandra had been troubled by racists and lesbians on the WTA Tour took the heat off another mother-daughter controversy - the 'split' between Martina Hingis and Melanie Molitor just before Wimbledon.

The fact that Samantha Stevenson is white and a single parent added a little bit of salacity to the tale and on the morning of Alexandra's semi-final against Lindsay Davenport a news agency revealed to the world the identity of her father.

It was none other than former 76er and basketball great Julius 'Dr J' Erving - a married man with four kids. With all that mental serve and volleying going on in her head it was little surprise that Stevenson was thrashed by Davenport. Thanks Mum.

Martina Navratilova, tennis' most famous lesbian before Amelie Mauresmo came along, summed up the general feeling within the locker room with this immortal line: 'Samantha Stevenson is supposed to be enlightened. Enlightened, my ass.' While the Stevenson clan will be viewed a bit warily on future visits to Wimbledon, Tiger Woods might have a few awkward moments at the upcoming British Open at Carnoustie in northeast Scotland.

Now Tiger has in the past extracted himself from the words of father Earl as easily as he splashes out of a sand bunker - being saddled by dad with nomenclature like The Chosen One is pretty heavy stuff - and he faces another nasty lie in Carnoustie.

Dad Earl commented recently that the weather in Scotland 'sucks' - it is an acquired taste, granted - before pitching in with this putdown of The Home of Golf.

'It has the sorriest weather. People had better be happy the Scots lived there instead of us soul brothers or the game of golf would never have been invented. We wouldn't have been stupid enough to go out in that weather to play a silly-ass game and freeze to death,' he was reported as saying.

One of the milder replies to this nonsense came from another golfing father, Bob Torrance, whose son, Sam, plays on the European Tour. 'Earl is obviously an idiot. The Scottish weather is not a handicap, it's an asset. It takes a lot of skill.' Tiger might just side with Bob Torrance on that one and win the damn thing.