Black Tennis Pros

American Alexandra Stevenson had the pleasure of having more than the Charleston, South Carolina tennis fans observe her match against Akgul Amanmuradova of Uzbekistan - dear old dad was in the stands.

Former NBA superstar Julius 'Dr. J' Erving sat in the stands of the Family Circle Cup and for the first time witnessed Alexandra play a tour match. As depicted in ESPN's "Outside The Lines, Reaching Out: Alexandra Stevenson And Julius "Dr. J" Erving," the father and daughter have been slowly building their newfound relationship.




Of Erving's visit Stevenson said, “He actually wanted to come to one of the challenger tournaments, and I was like, I don’t think you should come there. We play on public parks, and some of them are a bit sketchy.”

“This is a nice tournament to come to, and I think he knows the tournament director, Bob Moran, and he just picked this tournament.”

“We were never in a bad place, I just didn’t know him. So it’s good now. I mean, obviously, it’s still odd, because you are getting to know somebody. But it’s nice that I know him, and he is supporting me out here, coming to watch me play."

Stevenson was not able to bring in a win in front of her father, as she was defeated by Amanmuradova 6-2, 6-4. When asked if having Erving present made her nervous Stevenson said, “I actually didn’t even see him until the second set.”

“And he can see how hard tennis is. It’s not like basketball where you have a whole team of support. So it’s nice that he came out here.”

Read the rest of this post...........