DARIA KASATKINA

Nationality:

Russian Federation

Height:

170cm

Age:

Points:

3063

RANKING
#13

Player history

Daria Kasatkina was born in Togliatti on May 7, 1997. In singles she won five WTA titles and reached the top ten in the world rankings for the first time at the end of the 2018 season, the year in which she pushed herself to the final of the prestigious WTA 1000 in Indian Wells, lost against Naomi Osaka, to then perfect her best ranking up to 8th position in October 2022.

As for the Grand Slam tournaments, she qualified for the semifinal of the 2022 French Open.

Career

An avid Barcelona fan, she made her WTA qualifying debut at 2013 Moscow. Next year, at the same venue, she lost to Riske in her main draw first match at WTA level In 2014, she also she lifted the 2014 Roland Garros singles junior trophy.

In 2015 she won five singles titles on ITF Tour, taking the total to seven, and her maiden WTA doubles title at 2015 Moscow (w/Vesnina). She reached the quarterfinals for the first time at WTA-level in Bad Gastein, as a qualifier, and reached the third round on her Grand Slam major debut at 2015 US Open (l. Mladenovic). In Moscow, she improved that performance and made her maiden semifinals showing, losing to Pavlyuchenkova having recorded the first top-20 win of her career over No.14 Suárez Navarro.

In 2016, she lost at that same stage also at Australian Open (l. eventual champion Serena Williams), Roland Garros (l. Bertens) and Wimbledon (l. Venus Williams). Other highlights of that season included reaching the second WTA semifinal in St Petersburg (l. eventual R-Up Bencic) and the quarterfinals stage in Indian Wells (l. Karolina Pliskova), Charleston (l. eventual champion Stephens having held match points), Montreal (l. Kerber), Rio Olympics (l. Keys) and Moscow (l. Goerges).

In 2017 she completed the season at No.24, up from No.27 in 2016. The campaign was highlighted by capturing her first WTA singles title in her debut final in Charleston, defeating fellow teenager Ostapenko in the first all-teenage final on tour since 2009 Linz (Wickmayer d. Kvitova). She also reached the second tour-level final in Moscow (l. Goerges).

In 2018, her first top-ten season, Kasatkina earned her best result at the majors with the quarterfinals runs at Roland Garros (l. Stephens) and Wimbledon (l. eventual
champion Kerber) surpassing her previous-best R16 effort at 2017 US Open (l. Kanepi).

The Russian began the season with back-to-back first round exits at Brisbane (l. Kanepi) and Sydney (l. Strycova). Beaten in the second round in Melbourne, she reached the semifinals in St. Petersburg (l. Mladenovic). In the lasy eight she had defeated No.1 Wozniacki in straight sets to score the second career win over a reigning World No.1, becoming one of five players in WTA history to have multiple wins over World No.1s before their 21st birthday, after Venus and Serena Williams, Sharapova and Kuznetsova.

Kasatkina made her top 20 debut on February 26, 2018, at No.20. Then, she reached back-to-back finals at Dubai (l. Svitolina) and Premier Mandatory Indian Wells (l. Osaka), where she notched her fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh top 20 wins, climbing to No.11 following Indian Wells run (March 19, 2018). She fell in the quarterfinals in Charleston and Madrid.

Her clay season culminated with her career-best performance at a major, when she advanced to the quarterfinals at Roland Garros (l. eventual runner-up Stephens). In Paris, she earned her sixth win over a top-two player this season when she ousted Wozniacki and, along with Sharapova, became the first Russian to reach that stage there since 2014 (Sharapova and Kuznetsova). She then matched her best major result moving to the last eight in Wimbledon (l. eventual champion Kerber).

She reached the quarterfinals or more nine times this season, and lifted the second WTA title of her career in Moscow where she recovered from a set and 6-2 4-1 down to defeat Jabeur in final. Her record improved to 2-3 in WTA singles finals, all coming at Premier-level or above.

She finished the year as the third Russian woman to debut at Hengqin Life WTA Elite Trophy in Zhuhai. She was one of the six players in the draw to pass the 40-win mark in 2018, but she failed to move beyond the round robin stage.

Between 2019 and 2020, she had a negative two-year period, collapsing beyond position 70 in the WTA ranking.

The renaissance of Russian tennis began in 2021, when she won three WTA tiles, and the Billie Jean King Cup with Russia.

At the Phillip Island Trophy, Daria manages to reach the semifinals, easily defeating Boulter and Gracheva, recovering a set behind her countrywoman Anastasija Pavljucenkova (2-6 6-1 6-4) and leaving 4 games to Petra Martic. In the penultimate act, she faces Danielle Collins: Kasatina imposes herself in three sets (6-2 6(6)-7 6-1), accessing her first WTA final since 2018. In the circumstance, she challenges the Czech Marie Bouzkova: the Russian succeeds to get the better of a comeback (4-6 6-2 6-2), winning his third title in the major circuit, the first since the 2018 Kremlin Cup.

In St. Petersburg, she won her second title of the season by taking advantage of Margarita Gasparjan's back injury in the final, with a score of 6-3 2-1 in favor of Kasatkina. During the tournament she gets rid of Clara Tauson 6-4 7-60, while she manages to reassemble Aljaksandra Sasnovič (5-7 6-3 7-62), Veronika Kudermetova (1-6 6-1 6-2) and Svetlana Kuznetova (1-6 6-0 6-2). As for the standings, she moves up 23 positions, stopping at 38th place in the ranking.

In San Josè, Kasatkina kicks off the American swing on hard courts: seeded No. 4, the Russian reaches the final defeating, after the bye on her debut, Caroline Garcia (3-6 7-5 6-3), Magda Linette (6-4 3-6 6-4) and Elise Mertens (n°1 of the seeding, 6-3 6-2).

In 2022, she reaches the semifinal at the Roland Garros, her best result in the Grand Slams, at the same time returning to the top-20.

Style of play

Kasatkina uses a variety of shots including heavy topspin forehands, one-handed slice backhands, kick serves, and drop shots.

However, she is also capable of delivering powerful groundstrokes. Dehaes points out that the key to her is to avoid hitting the ball in her opponent's strike zone. Kasatkina's style has been praised by others, including women's tennis coach Wim Fissette, who has called her the Roger Federer of women's tennis.

Kasatkina's favorite surface is clay court. Kasatkina had a strong record on all three major surfaces however on the WTA Tour, winning a title on clay at the Charleston Open, winning a title on hard at the Kremlin Cup and reaching the quarterfinals on grass at Wimbledon.

Private Life

In a 2021 interview with Sofya Tartakova, she made statements that she implied she was bisexual.

In a later 2022 interview with Youtuber Vitja Kravchenko she came out, stating that she is in a relationship with figure skater Natalia Zabijako. She also said she could no longer live in the shadows and she strongly criticized the persecutions and restrictions of rights imposed on the LGBT community in Russia.

In the same interview you condemned the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, calling for an end to military aggression and showing solidarity with the Ukrainian people.

Net worth and endorsement

She has been sponsored by Nike, Tecnifibre and Instaforex throughout her career. Her sponsorship with Nike ended in 2021, following a string of modest results. In August 2021, she signed a deal with Adidas for apparel and footwear.

At the beginning of 2022, you sign a new agreement with Artengo as a racket supplier.

Kasatkina also won $9,230,258 in prize money. The estimated net worth of her should be around $8 million. Daria Kasatkina has not shared much about her cars, although many a time she has been seen moving in cars such as Mercedes Benz AMG and Subaru.