‘I couldn’t keep hiding’ Russian-born tennis star Daria Kasatkina came out as gay and denounced the war. Now she’s joining Team Australia — and being branded a ‘traitor.’
Daria Kasatkina, who spent years as Russia’s top-ranked women’s tennis player, has announced that she’s changing her sporting nationality. The 27-year-old will now represent Australia — a country she began calling home after publicly opposing Russia’s war in Ukraine and coming out as gay. She hasn’t returned to Russia since. Novaya Gazeta Europe reported on her decision and how athletes and politicians back in Russia have responded. Meduza shares an English-language version of the story.
Daria Kasatkina announced her decision to change her sporting nationality in a post on Instagram, written in English. The tennis player said she had obtained permanent residency in Australia and would now represent the country where she says she feels “totally at home.”
“I love being in Melbourne and look forward to making my home there,” she wrote. “As part of this, I am proud to announce that I will be representing my new homeland, Australia, in my professional tennis career from this point onwards.”
In recent years, Kasatkina has been Russia’s top-ranked women’s tennis player, despite not having lived in the country for some time. She was only recently overtaken by rising star Mirra Andreeva. Kasatkina is currently ranked 12th in the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) standings.
The 27-year-old, originally from the city of Tolyatti in western Russia, has won eight WTA titles over the course of her career. Since the start of the 2023 season alone, she has reached eight WTA finals, though she came away with just two titles. Her best Grand Slam result came at the French Open in 2022, when she reached the semifinals.
Kasatkina also found success playing for the Russian national team. She won silver in doubles at the 2014 Youth Olympic Games and was part of the Russian squad that claimed the Billie Jean King Cup in 2021.
In the summer of 2022, during an interview with Russian sports blogger Vitya Kravchenko, Kasatkina came out publicly. Her partner is well-known figure skater Natalia Zabiiako. In the same interview, Kasatkina also spoke out against Russia’s war in Ukraine. Later, she acknowledged that returning to Russia was no longer safe for her.
“Right now, it’s dangerous for me to go home, given the current regime,” she said. “As a gay person who opposes the war, going back simply isn’t possible. But I don’t regret it for even a second.”
“When the [full-scale] war started and everything turned into hell, it hit me hard,” she continued. “I just thought, screw it. I couldn’t keep hiding. I needed to speak up about my position on the war and my sexual orientation.”
‘I call people like that traitors’
Daria Kasatkina’s decision to switch her sporting nationality to Australia has drawn sharp criticism from several former Russian athletes and lawmakers.
Among the most vocal was four-time Olympic biathlon champion Alexander Tikhonov. Tikhonov himself has a checkered past — he was once convicted of plotting to assassinate Aman Tuleyev, then governor of Russia’s Kemerovo region.
“Of course I call people like that traitors, because I myself am a true patriot,” Tikhonov said. “She’s in the wrong — a lot was invested in her, but she earned everything [abroad]. I earned everything here, and it was all taken from me. So go ahead and compare.”
State Duma deputy and former hockey star Viacheslav Fetisov also weighed in, directing his criticism at Kasatkina’s parents. “[She’s] no longer a Russian athlete,” he said. “It’s how she was raised — to her, playing tennis meant finding a new homeland. The issue isn’t with her, it’s with her parents. It’s all just very sad.”
Fetisov’s own departure from the Soviet Union in the 1980s — to join the NHL — caused a scandal at the time. His daughter is a U.S. citizen and lives abroad.
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Another Duma member, Olympic speed skating champion Svetlana Zhurova, said Kasatkina was “Russian by birth, but raised with Western values.”
“Kasatkina has special reasons for changing her citizenship — everyone knows what they are, they just don’t say them out loud. People are already calling her a traitor and slapping labels on her. That’s why she’s afraid to come back to Russia — because of her non-traditional values,” Zhurova said, using the catchall phrase Russian authorities commonly apply to LGBTQ+ people.
Two-time Olympic biathlon champion Dmitry Vasilyev predicted Kasatkina would eventually return. “She’ll want to come back,” he said. “Russia is a truly democratic country — unlike many others where democracy has all but disappeared.”
However, not everyone in Russia’s sports world condemned her decision. Sports commentator Dmitry Guberniev — a frequent host of “patriotic” events — came to Kasatkina’s defense. “To call her a traitor — that’s just low,” he said. His remarks sparked immediate backlash from Russia’s pro-war blogosphere. Pro-invasion blogger Yuri Podolyaka wrote that Guberniev had “completely lost the plot,” calling him a “clown.”
Tennis Australia, meanwhile, has embraced Kasatkina’s move. The organization published a profile of her career on its official website and welcomed her “to the Australian tennis family” in a warm statement: “Effective immediately, Daria will compete as an Australian and we wish her all the best for her upcoming tournaments.”
