"Please Welcome, From Australia, Daria Kasatkina"
The World No. 12 speaks for the first time about her defection from Russia to Australia.
DANIEL ISLAND S.C. — Daria Kasatkina walked into her pre-tournament media rounds here at WTA 500 Charleston on Monday afternoon ready with an appropriate greeting.
“What’s going on…mates?” Kasatkina said.
Kasatkina was already talking the talk on her first day as an official Australian, a status marked by an update to her WTA profile as a new week began in the WTA calendar.
“Today, the rankings updated, and it's my first official day as an Australian player,” Kasatkina said. “And honestly, it feels...different. I'm not going to lie. It's emotional for me. So I have to get used to it. But yeah, I'm really happy to start this new chapter of my life and represent Australia on the big stage.”
Kasatkina had announced her defection three days earlier in posts on social media.
Kasatkina, who has been publicly dating her girlfriend Natalia Zabiiako for nearly three years, said that her ability to live and love openly and authentically was her driving reason for leaving Russia. (The Russian government has persecuted of LGBT people with various laws and rulings this century; in 2023, the Russian Supreme Court ruled that “the international LGBT movement is an extremist organization.”)
“Honestly with everything that's going on in my previous country, I didn't have much choice,” Kasatkina explained Monday. “Because for me, being openly gay, if I want to be myself, I had to make this step. And I did it, in the end.”
A life in Australia, Kasatkina said, would allow her to live her truth.
“Australia is the place where I feel that I can be myself,” she said, “and I really am really happy to have this privilege to be part of this beautiful country.”
Kasatkina said that the process of acquiring Australian permanent residency had been quick, beginning “just a couple of months ago.” It was Tennis Australia, Kasatkina said, who approached her first to get the ball rolling on her defection by reaching out to her agent, John Morris.
Update: Kasatkina’s agent John Morris clarified to Bounces on Tuesday that he had made the initial approach to Tennis Australia about Kasatkina coming to Australia in January, not vice versa. After Morris first broached the topic, he said, Tennis Australia was helpful in facilitating connections between Kasatkina and Australian Immigration authorities. The first interviews between Kasatkina and the authorities regarding her applications, Morris added, happened at the Australian Open in January.
“I think it's obvious to say that Australia is a very welcoming country, very open-minded,” Kasatkina said. “I mean, everyone is welcome there. And as I said, Tennis Australia, they also made this step forward to me. We, together, worked through this process and stuff. And of course, without their support and initiative, I don't think this would be possible. So I'm really thankful to them. And yeah, everything happened pretty fast, and I'm just really happy about it.”
Kasatkina joked that it might take her a moment to realize that when an announcer says “From Australia” during an on-court introduction, they will be talking about her.
“We were making a joke with Belinda [Bencic] the other day: she’s like, ‘How are you going to feel?’ I said, ‘Yeah, probably they're going to say, from Australia, and I'm just going to stay like, ‘[glances around]...who's that? Ah! Oh, it's me! That's me!’ Yeah, so as I said I have to get used to it a little bit—because for a couple of years I didn't hear anything, you know? But it's something nice to get used to.”
Because she has previously represented Russia in international competitions, Kasatkina won’t be immediately eligible to represent another country due to ITF rules forbidding double dipping, though Tennis Australia will be able to apply for an exemption on her behalf.
But Kasatkina will still be able to enjoy local support, she hopes, when the tour cycles back Down Under for the beginning of the 2026 season and she plays in Australia as an Australian for the first time.
“The first match is going to be special,” Kasatkina said of that occasion. “And coming to Australia every year, seeing how much support the players from Australia get there—honestly, I never experienced something like that in my life. I'm not used to it, so it's also going to be interesting to me to see how I'm going to feel coming back to Australia and play as a new Aussie. So it's going to be emotional, for sure, but I think I'm going to enjoy it. And yeah, really looking forward to it. First step is Charleston; still a long way to go before the next year. But yeah, I'm really happy and excited.”
The Welcome Wagon
Kasatkina will be around plenty of other Aussies on the tour with her before that, of course. She said the group has already embraced her in the days after her announcement.
“I've gotten so many messages from my now-teammates and also the representatives of Tennis Australia,” she said. “I've gotten a lot of support, nice messages. Yeah, I cannot wait to meet with all of them in person and talk and go through the process and just go through what happens. As I said, it's a special moment for me and I was very happy to receive this amount of support and nice messages from them.”
The chattiest compatriot, Kasatkina said, is her longtime friend Daria Saville (née Gavrilova), who also switched from Russia to representing Australia back in 2013.
“Dash is talking non-stop,” Kasatkina said of Saville. “Since I announced, she's non-stop. On the phone, she called me, then she keeps sending me some stuff like the apartments and the houses around her location [in Melbourne]. She's so excited; I'm scared. Yeah, she is super happy for me.”
“She Fits Everything Aussie”
Another Australian in Charleston was eager to roll out the welcome mat for Australia. Ajla Tomljanovic, who herself switched from Croatia to Australia in 2013, said the news of Kasatkina’s switch “came out of nowhere” for her.
“I had no idea, but I'm thrilled,” Tomljanovic said. “I think she's an amazing person, an amazing player and I just want her to be able to play for us—in the BJK Cup and Olympics. I think that she is an incredible addition. But even as a person, I just think she fits everything Aussie, so I'm excited for her.”
Tomljanovic said that Kasatkina’s quintessential Aussieness was her combination of kindness and tenacity.
“She fights on the court; at the same time she's chill,” Tomljanovic said of Kasatkina. “She loves her coffee. I always see that she susses out the coffee spots in a lot of the cities where we go to. And also, I always got the vibe when she was in Australia for the Aussie Swing that she just loved it there. And yeah, I can see her also fitting in so well with our team.”
Tomljanovic said she didn’t think Kasatkina would need much advice from her own experience about how to adapt to Australia.
“My biggest thing is I was just very grateful—and I'm sure she will be as well,” Tomljanovic said. “But at the same time: just be yourself, you know? Because she's already great as she is.
“The reason why she switched, probably, is she wanted something better—and she definitely got it,” Tomljanovic continued. “I mean, still to this day I always say it was the best decision I've made. So I'm sure she'll feel the same way.”
Thank you for reading Bounces! To support my work this week in Charleston and help me travel to cover more of the rest of the tennis season, please subscribe! -Ben
Bravo Daria! A possible future rabbit hole for you Ben is to understand the trends over the years in athletes choosing to leave their home countries. Not talking about people moving to avoid taxes, but those leaving because they couldn't live the way they wanted to in the country they were from. Navratilova and Lendl both left the then Czechoslovakia for the then more free US. Is there a bigger picture?