Sunday, the Ukrainian Yuliia Starodubtseva lost in the final of the Charleston Open to the American Jessica Pegula. Curious about the loser, I googled her and found, among other things, a video in which she was stopped on a street in New York City and asked what she did for a living. The interviewer was surprised to hear she was a professional tennis player; she looked like a lot of young women in New York, nicely dressed and carrying a book. She gamely answered questions about her outfit; there were none about the book. Because of the way she was holding it, I could make out part of the title and the name of the publisher: Knopf. Googling again, I learned the book was Strong Roots: A Memoir of Food, Family, and Ukraine by Olia Hercules. Yuliia Starodubtseva suddenly rose in my estimation. And of course I wondered how I could get Falling into Place: A Story of Love, Poland, and the Making of a Travel Writer into the hands of Iga Świątek.
