With her appearance today in the "dead rubber" doubles vs Bulgaria, she broke Shahar's record as the youngest ever to play for the national team (Shahar played a similar doubles match a week before her 15th birthday, Patiuk is 14y 9m). She even played respectably from the little I've seen, and didn't seem at awe from the presence of a former top-5 player at the other side of the net.
As said in the Fed Cup Zonal thread, this is the first time I got to see her, and she's powerfully built and could easily pass as a 17-18 year old. Someone (Tzoref?) said her game style is similar to Julia's.
Earlier posts about her from the "Israeli hopefuls" thread (all from Oct-Dec 2010):
Now we get to see if the 14 yr old Valeria Patiuk is a possible hope for the future. Current tournament is a $10,000 ITF in Akko,Israel.
Quarterfinal
Julia GLUSHKO (ISR) (1) Vs Valeria PATIUK (ISR)
Zuzana LINHOVA (CZE) (3) Vs Deniz KHAZANIUK (ISR)
Diana ISAEVA (RUS) Vs Gally DE WAEL (BEL) (4)
Julia KIMMELMANN (GER) (6) Vs Janina TOLJAN (AUT) (2)
She led Shlomo by a set in her only previous tournament, a 10K in Raanana in May, also in the QF.
Khazaniuk was also billed greatly as a future hope not long ago...
Taking a set from a top 100 veteran (Bratchikova) was unexpected and a very positive sign :yeah:
Strange that she met such an opponent in a 25K in Lagos of all places...
She played sparingly on tour this year, even after recovering from her injury. Hopefully we'll see much more of her in the remainder of this year and in 2013.
Apparently she had been injured again and is scheduled to play a junior tournament in Israel next month.
The last two years have been marred with recurring injuries and it seems very doubtful she'll be able to fulfill her great potential