Maryna Veksler moved from Ukraine in 2015 to enroll at FIU after the school’s tennis coach relentlessly pursued her.
Several programs had eyes on the then-teenager, but “She was the most persistent,” Veksler says of the woman who heads the FIU team. “I was shocked,” she adds of the full-on press that Katarina Petrovic employed to entice the high schooler. Tactics included reaching out via social media to a relative of Veksler in a bid to get others to nudge her toward South Florida.
“I'm like, I don't even know English,” Veksler remembers thinking at the time, still not sure she wanted to accept a spot at any university in the United States.
A visit to the Miami Open and time spent with Petrovic, however, proved an effective volley and convinced her to study for both the SAT and an English-language proficiency exam so that she might be admitted as an undergraduate.
Read more at FIU News .