Colleges

Uzbekistan star finds a part of heaven at UF

By ANTONYA ENGLISH
Published March 2, 2005

GAINESVILLE - Lolita Frangulyan was having a quiet dinner with her parents and sister nearly six years ago when a phone call changed her life.

The voice on the other end said she had been granted a wish to move to "heaven" - via a place called America.

Frangulyan, an 18-year-old rising star on the second-ranked Florida women's tennis team, was 12 years old when her father, Robert, signed up for a green card/visa lottery in Russia. In Eastern Europe, it is the way many get a visa to come to the United States. A year later, the call that many families never receive came to the Frangulyan's home.

"I picked up the phone and they said is Robert Frangulyan there?" she said. "I said, "Yeah.' And they said, "Can you tell him he won a green card?' And he was like, "Green card, oh my God.'

"It was like a miracle. We were all in shock. All our relatives came over (to celebrate). It was like, oh my God, America. I had heard rumors of America, but I never even imagined how it was going to be here. I watched American TV and we have those American movies translated into Russian. I'm thinking I've never seen palm trees, I've never seen the ocean. It was, wow, we're going to America. I thought we were going to heaven."

Moving was a sacrifice. Robert Frangulyan was a highly successful criminal lawyer and had to abandon his practice. He spoke no English. His wife, Mila, was an accomplished music teacher. They had no friends or family here.

The only thing they had was Lolita's dream. At one time she was the No. 1-ranked player in Uzbekistan in the girls 10, 12 and 14 age groups. So Robert Frangulyan told family and friends: "My daughter wants to play tennis so that's where we're going."

When the family arrived in Bradenton, they were awed by the seas, trees and abundant sunshine, but struggled with the isolation that comes from starting over in a new land, a new culture. Frangulyan's sister, Karina, had attended school in London, so she spoke English, as did Mila. Frangulyan and her father did not speak English. She was homesick for her friends and trying to adjust to the competitive world of the U.S. Tennis Association.

In June 2002, Frangulyan was the No. 1-ranked singles player in the USTA Girls 18 and ended the 2003 season tied for 17th in the USTA National Junior Girls 18 rankings. Instead of the Bollettieri Academy, she trained at the smaller Gomez Tennis Academy where she felt more comfortable. But the language barrier was still there.

Unable to understand her teammates or coaches, Frangulyan, a native of Uzbekistan, dedicated herself to learning English, mostly by listening to her American teammates. In six months she was fluent.

"I would say I was a fast learner, but you have no choice," she said.

Her first year in Bradenton, Frangulyan concentrated on tennis and did not attend school, but her mother wanted more for her. At 14, she enrolled in the Active Learning Academy, a home-school program. Still, she never thought of college.

A year later, fate stepped in again.

Florida was the site of a tournament Frangulyan was playing in, and while she and her father drove around lost and in search of the tennis courts, she went on an unexpected campus tour. She didn't exactly know what the University of Florida was, but she loved what she saw.

By the time UF coach Roland Thornqvist began recruiting her, the 5-foot-10, right-handed player was having a change of heart about turning pro. The pressure she felt to succeed was hampering her game and she felt guilty because of the sacrifices her parents had made, although she said they never pressured her.

She also had come to the realization that she didn't have enough financial support to keep playing in professional tournaments and that she needed a backup plan: an education. And only Florida would do.

Thornqvist couldn't be happier with Frangulyan's decision. She was 9-3 in the fall season and is 4-1 in the spring, playing at the No. 6 singles position and No. 1 and 2 doubles.

"Lolita has been one of our hardest workers," Thornqvist said. "When she came in the fall, she played really well. We changed a couple of things technically and that set her back a little bit, but she's been tremendously resilient in practice working on these things, and she's now coming back to where she was before the changes on her backhand side. I'm really proud to see her development. I'm really pleased with where she is right now."

After years of homeschooling, making the transition to college wasn't easy. Now in her second semester, she seems to have acclimated herself to college life - and America - just fine.

"I'm so happy that my life has turned out this way, the destiny that brought me here and that I ended up here," she said. "It's the best thing that ever happened to me. I have all those friends that I never had and I have a social life. I love school. It is heaven right now. I can say for sure, it's heaven after all."

[Last modified July 4, 2005, 08:41:30]