Daria Kasatkina

Daria Sergeyevna Kasatkina (born 7 May 1997) is a Russian-born Australian professional tennis player. She has been ranked as high as world No. 8 in singles by the WTA, achieved in October 2022. Kasatkina has won eight WTA Tour singles titles and one title in doubles. Her best results at the majors are reaching the semifinals at the 2022 French Open and the quarterfinals of the 2018 Wimbledon Championships.

Born in Russia to parents who were nationally ranked in athletics and ice hockey, Kasatkina began playing tennis at age six at the insistence of her older brother. She excelled as a junior, winning the European 16s championship and a junior major singles title at the 2014 French Open. Kasatkina quickly ascended the professional rankings, reaching No. 32 in the world while still 18 years old, and winning her first WTA Tour title in 2017 as a teenager at the Charleston Open. She rose to further prominence in 2018 by narrowly losing to fellow up-and-coming player Naomi Osaka at the Indian Wells Open in a match regarded as representing a new wave of women's tennis. Kasatkina also has won the biggest titles of her career at the Kremlin Cup and at the St. Petersburg Trophy at home in Russia. Following three successful seasons on the WTA Tour, Kasatkina struggled in 2019, falling into the bottom half of the top 100. However, she had a resurgent 2021, claiming two titles to return to the top 30, followed by another two titles in 2022, marking her return to the top 10.

In team competition, Kasatkina led the Russian team to victory at the 2020–21 Billie Jean King Cup, winning all her matches in the tournament. Alongside Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, Liudmila Samsonova, Veronika Kudermetova, and Ekaterina Alexandrova, she helped secure Russia's first Billie Jean King Cup title since 2008. Following her coming out as lesbian in 2022 (as a Russian, where LGBTQ rights are severely restricted) and her public condemning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Kasatkina switched nationalities to Australia in 2025. At that time, she was the Russian No. 2 in women's singles; subsequently, she became the Australian No. 1.

Kasatkina is known for her crafty style of play and diverse shotmaking. Compared to hard-hitting players who rely on their physicality and pure power, she relies on her speed and 'tennis IQ' to outmanoeuvre her opponents.

In addition to playing tennis, Kasatkina hosts a popular vlog series on YouTube titled What The Vlog with her wife and Olympic figure skater Natalia Zabiiako. The channel covers life on the WTA circuit and often features cameos from other players.

Early life and background Daria was born in Tolyatti, Samara Oblast to Tatyana Borisovna (née Timkovskaya) and Sergey Igorevich Kasatkin. Tolyatti is an industrial city located about 1000 km southeast of Moscow. Her father works as an engineer at the Volga Automotive Plant and her mother was a lawyer. Both of her parents were nationally ranked athletes in Russia (officially known as Candidates for Master of Sports); her mother in athletics, and her father in ice hockey. Kasatkina also has an older brother named Alexandr. Her brother had played tennis casually, and convinced her parents to have her also begin playing the sport when she was six years old. She initially played two to three times a week for two years. In time, she began competing in higher level tournaments. As the expenses to support her blossoming career began to rise, her parents made the difficult decision to sell their house to fund her training when she was about 12 years old. She is close childhood friends with fellow top players from the men's side Andrey Rublev and Alexander Bublik, as they are all the same age and grew up playing junior tournaments together in Russia.

Junior years

As a junior, Kasatkina was ranked as high as 3 in the world. She began competing on the ITF Junior Circuit shortly after turning 14 years old and won her first title at just her second career event, the low-level Grade 4 Samara Cup.

Kasatkina began excelling at the highest level junior tournaments in 2013. She reached her first Grade-1 final in doubles in January, which she followed up with her first Grade-1 final in singles in April. She then won her first junior Grand Slam matches the following month, reaching the quarterfinals at the French Open. Following this event, she did not play another tournament until late August, when she won her first Grade-1 title at the International Hard Court Championship in the United States. Kasatkina's last event of the year was the Junior Fed Cup, where she played the No. 1 singles matches. With Veronika Kudermetova and Aleksandra Pospelova, the top-seeded Russian team won the tournament, defeating Australia in the final.

Kasatkina had her best year on the junior tour in 2014, despite competing in just five tournaments. She reached both the singles and doubles finals at the Grade 1 Trofeo Mauro Sabatini, and won the title in singles. In August, Kasatkina also participated in the Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing. She earned a silver medal in doubles alongside compatriot Anastasiya Komardina. They finished runners-up to Ukrainian Anhelina Kalinina and Belarusian Iryna Shymanovich.

Professional 2013–15: WTA Tour doubles title Kasatkina began her professional career as a wildcard qualifying entrant at the 2013 Kremlin Cup, where she lost her only match. She made her professional main-draw debut on the ITF Circuit in November, and then won her first career title at a low-level 10k event in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt a few months later. She also won a $25k title in Telavi, Georgia the following September. Kasatkina again received a wildcard into the 2014 Kremlin Cup, this time for the main draw. She lost her WTA Tour debut to Alison Riske.

Kasatkina began 2015 ranked No. 354, but steadily climbed to No. 161 at the end of June on the strength of four 25k titles. She then recorded her first WTA Tour match-win in July, against Aleksandra Krunić at the Gastein Ladies, en route to the quarterfinals. With her rankings improvement, Kasatkina was able to enter qualifying at a major event for the first time at the US Open. Although she lost in the last round, she reached the main draw as a lucky loser and made it to the third round, upsetting compatriot and world No. 38, Daria Gavrilova, as well as No. 79, Ana Konjuh. Before the end of the year, Kasatkina won her biggest titles to date in both singles and doubles. In September, she won the Open de Saint-Malo $50k singles event. In October, she won the doubles event at the Kremlin Cup with Elena Vesnina for her first WTA title. She also reached semifinals in singles as a qualifier, her best singles result on the WTA Tour at the time. In the event, she defeated world No. 14, Carla Suárez Navarro, in the quarterfinals for the biggest win of her career. She finished the year ranked No. 72. Kasatkina then made her Australian Open debut and reached the third round. She defeated No. 27, Anna Karolína Schmiedlová, in the first round before losing to world No. 1, Serena Williams. For her next tournament, she returned to Russia for the St. Petersburg Trophy and reached the semifinals, losing to Belinda Bencic. At the Indian Wells Open, Kasatkina then made it to the quarterfinals at her first Premier Mandatory event. She also produced one good result in doubles, a semifinals appearance at the Qatar Ladies Open with Elena Vesnina. The Russian duo notably defeated Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza to end their 41-match-win streak, the longest streak on the WTA Tour since 1990.

In the middle of the season, Kasatkina again reached the third round at two more major events, the French Open and Wimbledon. At both tournaments, she lost tight matches that each ended 10–8 in the third set, the former against Kiki Bertens and the latter against No. 8, Venus Williams. She had two chances to serve out the match against Bertens. Kasatkina continued her success at big tournaments at the Premier 5 Canadian Open, where she reached the quarterfinals. She defeated world No. 8, Roberta Vinci, in the third round for her second career top ten victory. Her next tournament was at the Rio Olympics. She qualified for the singles draw through her ranking, and also entered the doubles tournament with Svetlana Kuznetsova, after Margarita Gasparyan withdrew due to injury. Kasatkina reached the quarterfinals at both events, falling just short of the medal rounds. She lost to American Madison Keys in singles and the Czech team of Andrea Hlaváčková and Lucie Hradecká in doubles. At the US Open, her streak of four consecutive third-round appearances at majors was ended in the opening round by Wang Qiang.

Kasatkina's last big singles result of the season came at the Premier 5 Wuhan Open, where she made it to the third round. She had needed to qualify for the main draw after forgetting to sign up for the tournament. For the second consecutive year, Kasatkina reached the doubles final at the Kremlin Cup, this time with Daria Gavrilova. The pair finished runners-up to Hlaváčková and Hradecká. Kasatkina ended the season at world No. 27. In Sydney, she also defeated Angelique Kerber for her first career victory over a current world No. 1 player.

After struggling on hardcourts, Kasatkina had better clay-court results on the strength of her first and last tournaments on the surface. At the Charleston Open, she won her first WTA Tour singles title, shortly before turning 20 years old. She defeated fellow teenager Jeļena Ostapenko in the final, in straight sets. Kasatkina closed out the clay-court season with another third-round appearance at the French Open, where she lost to eventual finalist and world No. 4, Simona Halep. Her only grass-court event was Wimbledon, where she made it to the second round.

Towards the end of the year, Kasatkina had more success on hardcourts. At the US Open, she made it to the fourth round of a major event for the first time. After defeating Ostapenko who had won the French Open, she was upset by veteran qualifier Kaia Kanepi. Nonetheless, she built on this result in Asia, first by reaching another WTA doubles final with Gavrilova at the Pan Pacific Open. In singles at the Wuhan Open, she upset world No. 2, Halep. She also made her second career Premier Mandatory quarterfinal at the China Open, this time losing to Halep. Kasatkina closed out the year with her second best singles result of the season, a runner-up finish at her hometown Premier tournament, the Kremlin Cup. She upset fifth seed and world No. 18, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, in the first round, but was defeated by seventh seed Julia Görges in the final.

2018: Kremlin Cup title, Russian No. 1, top 10 Kasatkina continued her late season success from the previous year into 2018. After only winning one match between three tournaments in Australia, she reached the semifinals at the St. Petersburg Trophy and then the final at the Dubai Championships, two Premier tournaments. In St. Petersburg, she notably defeated then-world No. 1, Caroline Wozniacki. In Dubai, she saved three match points en route to defeating another top-5 player in world No. 3, Garbiñe Muguruza, before losing to the defending champion and world No. 4, Elina Svitolina. Kasatkina's breakthrough came at Indian Wells, where she reached her second final of the season. She defeated four top-15 players at that event including Wozniacki again and also No. 8, Venus Williams, in a tight three-set match. She finished runner-up to fellow 20-year-old Naomi Osaka in a match regarded as representative of a new wave in women's tennis. With this result, she climbed to No. 11 in the WTA rankings and also became the Russian No. 1, ending Kuznetsova's long run as Russia's top women's singles player.

Kasatkina had strong clay- and grass-court seasons as well. She made the quarterfinals at the Charleston Open and the third round at the Premier 5 Italian Open. She also had another big result at a Premier Mandatory tournament, reaching the quarterfinals at the Madrid Open. During the event, she upset hometown favourite and world No. 3, Garbiñe Muguruza. Her best tournament on clay was the French Open, where she reached her first major quarterfinal. She defeated No. 2, Wozniacki, for the third time in 2018 in a match that was suspended midway through due to darkness, before losing to the eventual runner-up Sloane Stephens. Another major quarterfinal followed at Wimbledon, losing to the eventual champion and world No. 11, Angelique Kerber.

Tennis journalist Steve Tignor compared her ability to naturally hit one-handed backhands despite typically utilizing a two-handed shot similar to that of former world No. 1 men's tennis player Andy Murray. However, she is capable of hitting powerful groundstrokes as well. Dehaes said that her key is to avoid hitting the ball into her opponent's strike zone. Kasatkina's style has been praised by others including women's tennis coach Wim Fissette, who called her "the Roger Federer of women's tennis".

Kasatkina's favourite surface is clay. Fellow top women's player Caroline Wozniacki has commended her clay court ability, saying, "The slower the surface is, the better for her. She has very good hands and good angles and everything." As such, she also excels at tournaments with slower hard courts, such as the Indian Wells Open. Beginning in 2015, she moved to Trnava in Slovakia to train at the Empire Tennis Academy, citing her preference to train away from a large city, something that was less feasible in Russia. At the academy, she worked with former Slovak professional tennis player Vladimír Pláteník.

Personal life Kasatkina's tennis idol is Rafael Nadal. In the women's game, she is a fan of Petra Kvitová and Maria Sharapova. Tecnifibre throughout her career. Her sponsorship with Nike ended in 2021, due to a series of poor results. In August 2021, Kasatkina signed an endorsement deal with Adidas for clothing, footwear, and apparel. She switched to Decathlon's Artengo racquets in 2022 after trying different racquets in a blind test.

In an interview with Sofya Tartakova in 2021, Kasatkina made comments that were presumed to be discussing her bisexuality. In 2022, she clarified these comments, coming out as lesbian, and stating in an interview that she is in a relationship with Olympic Estonian-Russian figure skater, Natalia Zabiiako. It became public after Kasatkina and Zabiiako posted photos of each other together on Instagram.

Zabiiako and Kasatkina announced their engagement in June 2025 and married in July 2026. The couple also have a YouTube blog channel where regularly upload videos depicting a look into the behind-the-scenes of their life on the professional WTA circuit, often featuring interviews and cameos from fellow top players.

Kasatkina said that she "found living in the closet impossible" and also speaking out against the attitudes towards the LGBTQ+ community and restrictions of rights within Russia. In that same interview, she condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine, calling for an end to Russian aggression and showing solidarity with the Ukrainian people. In June 2023, she expressed her understanding for Ukrainian players who refused to shake her hand after matches, saying "It’s a very sad situation and I understand." After she switched her nationality to Australia, Ukrainian players resumed shaking her hand, out of respect for her speaking out against the war.

Career statistics

Grand Slam tournament performance timelines

Singles Current through the 2026 Wimbledon Championships.

Doubles

Note: 1Kasatkina and Anett Kontaveit withdrew from the 2019 US Open before their second-round match, which does not officially count as a loss.

WTA 1000 tournament finals

Singles: 1 (runner-up)

Awards The Russian Cup in the nominations: Team of the Year – Girls under-14: 2011; Team of the Year – Girls under-16: 2012, 2013; Junior of the Year: 2014; Team of the Year: 2021.