Tennis: Love-all for Pavlina and Grant

By Foster Niumata

Pavlina Stoyanova had a fun family Christmas with turkey and lots of presents - in November on the other side of the planet.

She has been in Auckland for six weeks, probably setting a record by an overseas tennis professional building up for the ASB Bank Classic, which does not start at Stanley St for another week.

Stoyanova, a 24-year-old Bulgarian with a musical laugh got a break from training yesterday, which she spent with the New Zealand boyfriend she met during last January's Classic, Grant Nola.

Through friends of friends, Nola was asked if he wanted to show a couple of foreign girls some Kiwi hospitality. He and Stoyanova hit it off.

By the end of the week, Stoyanova was meant to leave to play qualifying in Hobart, but Nola enticed her to holiday on the Coromandel Peninsula.

When Nola said he would follow her to Melbourne for the Australian Open qualifying, she did not believe him - until he arrived only hours after her. He cancelled plans to open a restaurant in Sydney.

After Melbourne, Nola sold his health and nutrition company, met Stoyanova in Bogota, Colombia - "the places you go for a girl. We're not going back there" - and has been with her on the WTA Tour since.

"My ego allows me to do this. You have to be the best guy to be pushed around by her," joked Nola, who will follow her for a while yet. "We get on real good.

"If she didn't have the talent, I'd say let's forget it and settle in New Zealand, but she's got a lot of ability and it'd be a waste. In the right environment, the right coaching, the right results will come. They are already."

This year Stoyanova's highlights include qualifying at Key Biscayne, then beating world No 45 Amy Frazier, qualifying again at the United States Open, then defeating Tamarine Tanasugarn, winning the doubles in Palermo and finishing
with the challenger singles and doubles titles in Indian Wells. She is ranked 93rd in the world.

"I'm really happy with it," she said. "I know I could do much better and I change my game, my thinking, a lot."

A lot of credit has gone to New Zealand coach Russell Simpson, whose serve-volley style was admired by Nola, who set up a meeting in mid-year.

Simpson oversaw Stoyanova for a month before the United States Open, and is in town now, helping her Classic build-up.

Thanks to Simpson, Stoyanova will base herself near him in Los Angeles.
Stoyanova was born and raised in Varna, a pleasant, farm-based town on the Black Sea. Her father captains a cargo ship and her mother stays home, helping to care for her cocker spaniel, a 20th birthday present from dad.

One day when she was eight, Stoyanova went to the tennis club 100m from home where, thanks to the communist doctrine of sport for everybody, the claycourts
and coaches were free.

She laughed when recalling first using a wooden paddle, then graduating to wooden rackets.

"The claycourts," she said, rolling her eyes, "really bad."

Stoyanova was Bulgaria's No 1 through 14s, 16s and 18s age-groups, but because she was from Varna, 500km from the capital, Sofia, and her family had no political connections or clout, she was not allowed to play outside Bulgaria.

When the Communist Party was ousted in 1990, the borders became invisible walls. People could talk and walk freely, but Bulgarians needed visas to enter other countries, and still do.

Even now, Stoyanova is used to waiting for hours in queues for a form to fill out, and queuing again for hours more for a visa she might or might not get, depending on the clerk's mood.

When she did not make the cut for the Gold Coast tournament last January, she decided to play in New Zealand at the last minute. Classic tournament director Richard Palmer sent a validating fax, which swayed customs officials.

In qualifying, Stoyanova beat former semi-finalist Karin Kschwendt and lost to former champion Ginger Nielsen. She will have to qualify again.

After the Iron Curtain fell and she was still not chosen to play junior events outside Bulgaria, Stoyanova stopped playing for three years, but she never
stopped loving the game.

When the Bulgarian championships came to Varna in 1994, a former coach persuaded her to enter. She practised for two months and won. She was invited to play for a German club, finally getting her ticket out of Bulgaria.

Now she comes and goes when she pleases, even for Christmases in November.

Pictured: Pavlina Stoyanova. PICTURE / FOTOPRESS