NEW YORK — Mariia Vainshtein never heard the noise and slept straight through that horrible night four years ago.
She didn’t have her phone near bed when she woke the next morning — it probably had been taken by her parents for some teenager’s misbehavior, she suspects now with a laugh – so she couldn’t scroll around for the news of the day. Instead, she just asked her mother when she could get a ride to school.
Anzhelika Kotliantseva knew they weren’t going anywhere in Ukraine that day. Not after she had been awake for hours, listening to the nearby explosions that began when Russia launched its invasion.
“My mom was like, ’What do you mean? We’re at war! There’s no school, no nothing!’” Vainshtein said.
Within days, a dream of someday going to the US for an education was rushed into reality, one she wasn’t ready for. No command of English, no father with her to help console her on the days she returned from school upset after kids picked on her for the way she talked.
Those difficult early days are past. Now 17, Vainshtein is a New York City high school tennis champion who may keep playing when she heads to college in the fall.
“I’m very proud of her. Very proud,” Kotliantseva said. “I’m so excited that she’s going to college, and she’s gone so far in this short time.”
Personal growth
Vainshtein helped James Madison High School in Brooklyn win the Public Schools Athletic League championship in 2024, its first title since 1978. She also won the individual competition, and last summer added the trophy for her division in the Mayor Dinkins Cup, a tournament for New York City players from both public and private schools.
Vainshtein’s home city of Odesa produced professional women’s tennis players Elina Svitolina, who reached this year’s Australian Open semifinals, and Dayana Yastremska. Her father also played when he was younger. But her introduction to the sport at age 5 was for medical reasons as much as physical.
She struggled focusing her eyes when she was younger, and a doctor recommended getting her into a sport where she would have to follow a ball. Vainshtein played in junior tournaments in Ukraine, and her tennis went to another level when she began training at the Cary Leeds Center for Tennis & Learning in the Bronx.
She tried out and was accepted into the New York Junior Tennis & Learning’s free scholar athlete program for Grades 3–12, where the tennis instruction is mixed with life skills education. When Rob Cizek began working with Vainshtein, he could tell she was an aggressive player who liked to win points with her power, but sometimes rushed too much. Cizek, who studied sports psychology while he was a college player, makes mental focus an aspect of his coaching, and it paid off for her on and off the court.
“We talk to them, ‘OK, what happened here? How did you handle this? How can you handle it better next time?’ and I think that’s something that sometimes gets overlooked,” Cizek said. “But to me it’s a really important part of their growth, both off the court but also later when they face adversity, tough situations, and they have some tools to handle that.”
Vainshtein and her family had already dealt with that.
They packed for months
Odesa is a port city on the Black Sea and was an early target of Russia’s attacks, with explosions heard before dawn on Feb. 24, 2022. Her family first rushed to a bomb shelter, then fled to nearby Moldova. Deciding it still wouldn’t be safe in Ukraine, Kotliantseva brought her two daughters to New York, where the parents and sister of her husband and Mariia’s father, Oleksandr, live. Only he couldn’t join them, because men were forbidden from leaving Ukraine.
“It was terrible. In three days, we decided to move, me and my two daughters, and my husband left in Ukraine, and we didn’t know if we’d see him again and when we’d see him again,” said Kotliantseva, who, like many, initially thought the war would be short.
“We took our clothes for two months,” she said.
They see Oleksandr, who has remained in the family’s home in Odesa, a couple of times a year now, and he has been able to watch his daughter play. They meet either in the US or another country, as Vainshtein’s parents have viewed Ukraine as too dangerous to let her return since they left.
Vainshtein hoped to come to the US for college, which would have meant this year — school in Ukraine runs through what would be 11th grade in American high schools. But her mother would still be home with her husband if not for the war.
“I did it for my kids, and now I’m OK. I adapted. It was difficult,” Kotliantseva said.
And it was especially so for her daughter, then in eighth grade. While students in Ukraine are required to study English, Vainshtein explained that was more writing and grammar. It didn’t do much good when it came to speaking and understanding — especially in New York, where they do it quickly.
She would plead with teachers not to call on her in class so she wouldn’t be laughed at, asking if just turning in all her assignments would be good enough. “Really, what people did, they said, ‘You have to learn English. Go back to your country and learn English,’” Vainshtein said. “Like, what do you mean, go back? My country is at war, so I can’t go back.” AP
NEW YORK — The WNBA told the players’ union that it needs to get a deal in place by March 10 to start the season on time at a virtual collective bargaining agreement negotiating session Monday, a person familiar with the discussions told The Associated Press (AP).
The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the negotiations.
With an expansion draft for two teams needed to get done, as well as 80 percent of the league’s free agents, there’s plenty to get accomplished and little time to do it. A delay would hurt both sides.
The season is supposed to start May 8, and every game missed is lost revenue, sponsorships, television money and fan support. Monday’s meeting was the first between the sides that involved players and the league since they met at the WNBA offices on Feb. 2. Because of the winter storm that hit New York, it was decided to hold the meeting virtually.
Over 50 players were on the call, which lasted nearly two hours, the person said.
The two sides are still far apart on revenue sharing and housing, and the clock is ticking. The league said in the meeting on Monday that it would need to have at least a handshake agreement by March 10 for there not to be a delay to the start of the season.
The league, in its latest proposal that was sent on Friday, offered 70 percent net revenue for the players. That came after the union had asked for an average of 27.5 percent of the gross revenue over the course of the CBA, beginning with 25 percent in the first year of the new deal. In its previous offer, the union had asked for an average of more than 30 percent.
The league at that point said in a statement that the revenue sharing percentage remained unrealistic and would cause “hundreds of millions of dollars of losses for our teams.”
Also on Monday, the union confirmed to the AP that the WNBA will give its players $8 million from revenue sharing from last season, as the league generated enough to trigger revenue sharing for the first time in league history. ESPN was the first to report the move.
The players will decide how much each player will receive from that distribution. The union has 60 days from Feb. 9, when it was officially notified of the revenue-sharing money, to come up with how it will disperse the funds.
That money will be distributed by the teams, which will then be reimbursed by the league. Under the 2020 CBA that has since expired, players received 50 percent of shared revenue — defined in the CBA as the amount of revenue that’s above a predetermined threshold amount minus 30 percent for expenses.
Neither the league nor the union would say what that threshold is. The league has had in nearly all of its proposals that it would do away with the threshold needed to be reached for revenue sharing.
In its latest offer, the league said teams would continue to pay for housing for all players this season, another person familiar with the negotiations told the AP on Saturday. The person also spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the negotiations.