Vozniak Takes Journey to Stony Brook in Stride

Freshman tennis player Kristina Vozniak had stepped on many planes in her life before she boarded a flight out of the Ukraine at the end of last summer. But this time, the flight would change her life.

“It was my first trip alone because I used to go everywhere with my parents,” Vozniak, who plays at the top of the Stony Brook Women’s Tennis lineup, said. “But I was so excited, I wasn’t worried at all.”

An 18-year-old and one of Stony Brook’s star players, she was not only going away to school, but moving to a new country.

“My experience was way better because Polina was here,” Vozniak said of senior Polina Movchan, the team’s number one singles player and fellow Ukrainian, who helped ease the transition. “The first day I came, she told me, ‘You have to buy this. You have to do this. You have to go there.’ So for sure, with her, it was way easier for me. She helped me a lot.”

So did joining a team willing to help her with the move. Leaving home for any incoming college student is tough, but it is arguably even more difficult for those crossing an ocean to do it. The change of scenery did not phase Vozniak one bit.

“I was really excited, I wasn’t even worried,” she said. “Of course language was a little bit of a problem because I was worried to say something wrong, and people were talking so well. I was worried about that, but thank god I have really good freshmen [with me] too. Yana [Nikolaeva] and Elizabeth [Tsvetkov], they help me a lot with language.”

In her seven months in the U.S., Vozniak has done more than just adjust to life in a new country. She has made her mark on the tennis court for a top-notch Division I program, going 6-2 so far at the top two spots in the Stony Brook lineup, while totaling 15 wins thus far.

“It’s kind of new for me because I used to only go to competitions to play my singles matches,” Vozniak said. “I like the support we have on the team, I like when there are a lot of people watching you, especially in team sports … it’s amazing.”

Amazing for the team was what it accomplished for the first time in program history earlier in the year. With their win over then-43rd-ranked Brown, the Seawolves broke into the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) national rankings at number 53.

“We were really happy, we were really excited,” Vozniak said. “When we were playing against Brown, we saw it was our last chance to get ranked and the girls really gave it all on the court.”

The biochemistry major played a major role in the history-making victory herself, scoring a win over a blue-chip recruit, Alyza Benotto, who was ranked in the top-15 of recruiting lists nationally last year. After a difficult match, Vozniak prevailed 2-6 7-5 7-6(8) to finish off Stony Brook’s 5-2 win, giving the team enough ranking points to break into the list of the nation’s elite.

“I played a really tough match, it was three hours,” Vozniak said. “It was really tough. We were incredibly happy, I was really happy that it was my first year and we did it.”

According to Vozniak, she owes everything to Stony Brook Head Coach Gary Glassman, who is in charge of both the women’s and men’s tennis teams.

“I’m really thankful to him because nobody believed that I can play tennis,” said Vozniak, who had sent out a recruiting video from inside a dilapidated Ukrainian basketball gym to many schools. “I didn’t have an ITF ranking so it was really hard for me to find a good school.”

Yet, through the encouragement of Movchan, who Vozniak had met a couple of years ago in the Ukraine, Glassman took a chance on a player who already has emerged as  one of the team’s best.

“I think it’s amazing, it’s the best time of my life. I’m really excited that I came here, I’m really happy how I’m doing,” Vozniak said. “I feel like I became a better tennis player, mentally for sure, I got tougher because all those matches that I was playing were really tough and it made me a better person and tennis player.”

For the many coaches who ignored her recruiting video, in which one can see Vozniak hustling back and forth to hit forehands and backhands, they now get to see in person exactly what they missed out on.

“It’s really great to be here and play against the schools that said I’m not good enough and beat them,” she said. “It’s an incredible feeling to prove to people that you’re better.”