After more than a decade of squaring off against rivals boasting a home Grand Slam advantage, Daria Kasatkina is ready to experience life on the bright side.
Competing in the Australian Open women’s singles main draw for an 11th straight year, the world No.48 is excited to be stepping onto court as a newly minted Australian citizen. “Happy, grateful and free,” she captioned a social media post highlighting the occasion.
“It feels very special,” she said on Saturday. “I had a thought, like, it would be so nice to have a home Slam, but I would never imagine that it will become real...I will try to enjoy it as much as possible.”
“Finally I can just breathe, I can live and just do my job and not to be worried about the things which are not in my control.”
“Really happy to be an official Australian now and just to participate in Australian Open and in front of the great crowd here.”
The 2022 Roland Garros semifinalist, who prepared for AO 2026 at the Brisbane and Adelaide International, is hoping the vocal fans at Melbourne Park will help elevate her performance.
“For the first time I'm gonna play in front of such a big home crowd, so that's gonna be special,” she said. [I’ll] definitely have to manage my nerves…never been in this situation before.”
“This is a good pressure.”
Kasatkina, eager to rebuild toward a career-best ranking of No.8, said her level of tennis has returned to a better place than where it was for much of last season. And although she boosted her self-belief with a straight sets win over former world No.3 Maria Sakkari in Adelaide, just days after the Greek star earned United Cup victories over major champions Naomi Osaka and Emma Raducanu, the right-hander is still searching for increased trust in her game.
“My priority is to ... get back my confidence,” said the 28-year-old, who ended her season early citing mental and emotional exhaustion. “Physically I'm quite back, but the last season left some mark on me, so I have to get out of this.”
“I will just go match by match, tournament by tournament, working hard and try to get it back. I'm working very hard on all of the aspects of my game, on my mental strength.”
After consuming multiple coffees and encountering local wildlife including a koala, a kangaroo and a wombat in recent weeks Kasatkina joked that she’s still working on her Aussie accent and adding slang phrases into her conversations. Regardless, she’s revelling in the unconditional acceptance and support from her new nation.
“I felt so much love...I'm just super proud and grateful,” she said. “I don't know if I will be ever able to pay back the same amount what this country gave me, it's super special.”
At last year’s AO, Kasatkina made a career-best run to the fourth round, where she fell to Emma Navarro in three sets. As one of ten Australian women hoping to lift the Daphne Akhurst Memorial Cup four years after Ash Barty’s memorable title run, she’ll aim to fly her new flag into the second week once again.
But first in opening round action, she’ll face Czech Nikola Bartunkova, the 19-year-old who came through qualifying to secure a maiden AO main draw berth. If successful, a second round battle against either 10th seed Belinda Bencic or Great Britain’s Katie Boulter awaits.