At a time when feel-good stories are a little hard to come by, look no further than the ITF/Tennis Europe 14 & Under Development Championships in Turkey.

This year’s event, a key stepping stone in the early shaping of talented young tennis players, proved especially poignant after one nation turned up, unexpectedly, with just a sole representative.

While the 10 other participating nations arrived at the end of February with a coach, a team of players and supporting entourage, 14-year-old Iana Semichina pitched up in Antalya to compete under the Moldovan flag alone after her teammates were grounded when the nation closed its airspace due to the devastating situation in neighbouring Ukraine.

Semichina, who had been competing at a tournament near Paris the week beforehand, was able to fly direct to Turkey while her compatriots from Moldova (which shares it’s North, East and Southern boundary with Ukraine) saw their plans dissolve, international travel curtailed and a 60-day state of emergency enforced.

I got a call from Moldova telling me all flights were grounded and they couldn’t send a team.

“We were travelling to Turkey on February 24th, exactly when the invasion started,” reflected Vitor Cabral, the ITF’s Development Officer for Europe. “I got a call from Moldova telling me all flights were grounded and they couldn’t send a team.”

Fortunately, Chișinău native Semichina could fly in from Paris and proved both undeterred and resolute in the face of the unnerving situation so close to home. She travelled to Antalya with her mother, a tennis coach (who inadvertently became the Moldovan team captain), and lined up alongside all the other teams to carry her nation’s flag in a particularly touching scene.

“There are two events at the Development Championships – a 12 & Under and a 14 & Under so all the nations attended the opening ceremony with quite large teams,” Cabral explained. “And then from Moldova, you just had this small girl alone, just holding the plaque with the name of her country.

It was so endearing for all of the other teams. She became the mascot of the tournament.

“It was so endearing for all of the other teams. She became the mascot of the tournament.

“There was a very human feel to it all,” he continued. “Immediately people tried to make her comfortable and to protect her a little bit. And she is also very nice, very professional. She speaks very, very good English and so she communicated well with everybody.”

Semichina matched that maturity on the court, reaching the semi-finals of the singles event and ultimately winning the third-place play-off after defeating Turkey’s Esila Toklu in straight sets.

Not bad, given that she had arrived at the event without appropriate footwear.

“She was coming from a [hard court tournament in a] different country, so she didn't have all the right equipment,” Cabral said.

Everybody came together and the Turkish people really helped her out, immediately providing a car to take her and her mother to a sports shop to buy some tennis shoes

“Everybody came together and the Turkish people really helped her out, immediately providing a car to take her and her mother to a sports shop to buy some tennis shoes, because she didn't have any to play on clay.

"There were all these logistics behind it, so it was not easy, and in spite of all that difficulty she achieved some success.”

Semichina and her peers follow in impressive footsteps at the ITF/Tennis Europe Development Championships. The event, which has been held in Turkey for the last 11 years, has given the likes of Victoria Azarenka, Simona Halep, Jelena Ostapenko, Grigor Dimitrov and Marcos Baghdatis an early taste of life at an international tennis tournament and proved a solid first step toward greater heights in the game.

Thoughts of a professional career remain some way off for now and, of course, there’s the immediate future to navigate.

Semichina was initially introduced to tennis in Moldova through the ITF Junior Tennis Initiative (JTI) - a national 14 and under junior development programme for a National Association which provides increased opportunities for participation and identifies talent for focused development.

For now, she is unable to return to the scene of her tennis grounding and will continue to travel and compete abroad for the foreseeable future. Despite the uncertainty in her home country, Cabral, for one, is confident that the Moldovan has all the attributes to deal with the challenges on the court.

She's always very polite, which also helped her become a small star in this event in the end, all while completely alone.

“What I would say for sure is that she is coming from a tennis family, so she has all the traits of a small professional already,” he said. “The way that she conducts herself is very... well, let's say, almost professional.

“The way she handles everything, talks to the other players, to the referees too. She's always very polite, which also helped her become a small star in this event in the end, all while completely alone. She's like a small national hero in the middle of all this.

“Of course, she comes from a very small country, so it’s not easy for her to have the best partners to practice with either. She has, for sure, the potential to be a very good player in the future. Let’s hope so.”