So much has been written about overbearing stage parents and one sports column on it isn?t going to change them.

Maybe a piece on positive parenting could encourage them to be calm and discerning in their kids? sports activities.

It was a sunny Tuesday morning at the Rizal Memorial Tennis Center for Day 2 of the 20th Andrada Cup, the age-group competition.

Unlike major tournaments here and abroad where crowds outnumber the players, this tournament was a peaceful venue for aspiring tennis teenagers. There were few people in the gallery. Of course, there was the usual court and match-time changes but nothing that referee Boy Leonor could not announce through the PA system.

This was in contrast to the competition in the 1991 Southeast Asian Games which I covered with Dyan Castillejo and the late Jun Bernardino, who loved the game just as passionately as he did basketball.

Felix Barrientos and Roland So were the crème of the crop then, thrilling fans and many who discovered tennis because of the loud cheering that could be heard in the other nearby venues.

And yet one could sense that from this unheralded batch of Andrada Cup youngsters a new breed of local and international tennis heroes could emerge. The Chinese-Taipei and Japanese delegations were around, along with a few children of expatriates.

At the same venue in the 1990s, I remember covering a very young Tim Henman, the former British No. 1 who would later win many international tournaments, except the Grand Slam events. There was also Leander Paes of India, a winner of several Grand Slam doubles titles.

Even flamboyant Frenchman Yannick Noah revealed during an exhibition match here in 1989 that he had won a tournament in Manila in 1978.

In the heat of the day and the competition, it was heartwarming to see patient parents waiting for sons or daughters no matter what the result of the match was. A parent who saw her daughter falter in straight sets dismissed the loss, saying it?s a win for experience. Others carried bags, led the way to the racket stringer, or toted coolers loaded with ice for their kids.

Tennis tournaments in their early stages seem to discourage excessive parental enthusiasm. It?s not just the winning that gives parents anxious moments. They also want their children to perform well.

In the past, overzealous parents were seen scolding their kids because of wrong grips, late lunges at the ball or service errors. Nothing like botched plays to unnerve edgy parents.

We must learn that pouncing on kids right after losses or sub-par performances will do no good, even if the intention is for them to learn from miscues. Once the pain of defeat subsides, a game may then be rehashed for key learning points. Quite often, that?s done at home. As they say, you learn more from losing than from winning.

But win or lose, we have to be in our kid?s corner. The winners that day in the Andrada Cup savored their triumphs with their parents. But I suspect that even the two children of a man named Bimbo were having a great family lunch somewhere near the tennis courts?even if they had been eliminated from contention.