Ira Shostakovich, an 11-year Ukrainian in training to be an elite tennis player, fled her war-torn homeland and landed in the California Bay Area where the tennis community has embraced her.
Shostakovich, who is a relative of the Soviet Russian-era composer Dmitri Shostakovich, arrived in California last weekend with her mother and 18-year-old brother to stay with extended family that lives in Novato.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported on the girl’s journey, including that she has been playing tennis since she was a kindergartner and was training and competing at a private tennis academy in Dnipro, Ukraine:
[The family] got help in getting Ira back on the court. Lee Edwards, a friend of her father, Vladimir, tweeted a request on Monday asking if anyone could help Ira continue her tennis training. Edwards, who works for a venture capital firm has more than 11,000 Twitter followers.
In just a few hours, dozens of suggestions and offers poured in — including from some big names in tennis, Edwards said.
‘I definitely didn’t expect to have tennis pros (direct-messaging) and calling me,’ Edwards said. ‘I’m not a tennis fan, so I had to Google the names. They are top, top names.
Those names include Andy Roddick and associates of Rajiv Ram.
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