Tennis career may well be passport to more success

HOME AND AWAY MARIYANA LEVOVA:MARIYANA LEVOVA is an 18-year-old Bulgarian tennis player living in Ireland. She is the best female player in the country and is hoping to attain an Irish passport and play with Ireland's Federation Cup team. Last season she won every tournament in which she played.

Before I came to Ireland I was living in Bulgaria’s second biggest city, Plovdiv, with my grandparents. My mum and dad had already come over here and I arrived in March 22nd, 2005. My mum had been here for two years when I came over.

I had been playing tennis with a local club in Bulgaria. It was all underage tournaments – the under-16 winter championships and the under-14 tournaments.

Then when I came to Ireland I went to Castleknock Tennis Club, where I played for two years. It was really great there and everyone was really nice to me. I trained at the club with Declan Donnellan and he really helped me. But after a while we had a long conversation and we decided that maybe going to the National Training Centre at DCU would be better to bring my tennis on because there were more people to hit with there.

So I went to DCU, where the tennis academy is, and stayed until around Christmas 2007. But at that time I was doing the Leaving Certificate and I needed to study so I left DCU. There was too much pressure, five hours training a day and going to school as well. I took a few months’ break completely from about Christmas to March last year. That was a big decision for me. But I needed it.

One of the things I found out was what it was like to be a normal person. Go to school, come back from school and do homework like anyone else. But I think it really helped my tennis because I definitely needed the break.

I wanted to play tennis but I had priorities. I realised that I had just six months to go at school and after that I had the whole of my life to play tennis. Luckily I did well in the Leaving and I got 520 points. I was very happy, very pleased with that.

Then I took most of last year out to travel with the view now of going to Trinity College in September. I know it sounds weird but I like study. Maybe I’ll do science. I love tennis but I’ve always wanted a good education. My parents think it’s the most important thing for everyone as well. Dad says that even if you are the best in the world in a sport you can always get injured and you need something to fall back on. I think that’s very important too.

I’ve applied a few times for the Irish passport and I think I was very close to getting it. Now we’ve gone back to zero. I don’t know what’s going on and at the moment we just have to just wait and see what happens.

Ireland is much different to Bulgaria, climate wise, and I do miss my friends but I think there is a better quality of life here. I really like green and here everywhere is green. At the moment I’m training at Westwood in Clontarf with Peter Clarke, who played Davis Cup for Ireland. I have about five or six months over the summer before college starts in the autumn and I’m going to play as much tennis as possible.

If I do well I may even postpone college again.

In Ireland I don’t have an official national ranking (because of passport issue) but I’m now the number one. I won every tournament that I played in last summer. That was eight or 10 tournaments. I was really happy, personally, about that.

I had a tournament three or four days after the Leaving exams and I hadn’t played for three or four weeks and I’d also had the mumps. I’d four days to get ready for the National Close Championships and I won. I beat Rachel Dillon in the final and I really didn’t expect to do that. I didn’t know where my tennis game was. I just wanted to get out and play.

I’m four years in Ireland now. The thing is I have options open to me and over the next six months I’ll consider what they are and what is the best thing to do next.