Sport: Successful sporting mothers

Lindsay Davenport’s three grand slams all came before motherhood. However, when she returned to the tour after her son, Jagger Jonathan, was born in 2007, she set a new record for women’s earnings in sport. Davenport pulled out of this year’s Australian Open after learning she was pregnant with her second child, Lauryn Andrus, who was born in June. She is scheduled to return to the WTA tour this month. Photograph: Michael Bradley/AFP/Getty Images

Margaret Court Smith won 24 grand slam titles between 1960 and 1973. Three came in 1973, a year after the Australian gave birth to Daniel, the eldest of her four children, at the age of 29. Photograph: AFP/AFP/Getty Images

Catriona Matthew, 40, won two LPGA Tour trophies prior to becoming a mother but her greatest success came with her first major this year. Just 11 weeks after giving birth to the youngest of her two daughters, Sophie, Matthew won the Open at Royal Lytham and St Annes. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

Katie Chapman missed the entire 2008 season while pregnant with her second son, Riley. However, the 27-year-old defender returned to feature in England’s European Championship campaign this month and played in the final – which the team lost 6-2 to Germany. Photograph: Ian Walton/Getty Images

Liz McColgan won Olympic silver in the 10,000m at Seoul in 1988. The eldest of her five children, Eilish, was born in 1990 – when McColgan returned the following year, she won world championship gold. Photograph: Clive Brunskill/Getty Images

Dara Torres, a former world-record holder, launched a comeback at 41 when her daughter, Tessa Grace, was two. She won three silver medals in the pool at the Beijing Games. Photograph: Nick Laham/Getty Images

Evonne Goolagong, the last mother to win a grand slam before Kim Clijsters’ US Open success on Monday, won seven slams in total. Two of them came after the birth of her first child, Kelly, in 1977 – the Australian Open later that year and the 1980 Wimbledon title. Photograph: Don Morley/Getty Images

Since giving birth to a daughter, Isla, in 2007, Paula Radcliffe, a world championship gold medallist at 10,000m in 2005, has won two New York marathons. Photograph: Chris Trotman/Getty Images

Fanny Blankers-Koen, the Flying Housewife, won four gold medals on the track at the 1948 Olympic Games in London – as a 30-year-old mother of two. Photograph: Keystone/Getty Images

Denise Lewis gave birth to a daughter, Lauryn, two years after her biggest triumph, winning gold in the heptathlon at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. She returned to the sport but finished outside the medals in the 2003 world championships and at the Olympics in Athens the following year. Photograph: Michael Steele/Getty Images

The mother of three daughters, Nancy Lopez has 48 wins on the LPGA Tour. Of those, 21 have come since she had children. Photograph: Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images