Daria Kasatkina explores girlfriend Natalia Zabiiako’s sport, trades in her tennis racquet for ice skates in a night of figure skating
Daria Kasatkina took a break from tennis for a night of figure skating with her friend Natalia Zabiiako.
Daria Kasatkina broke the Russian taboo when she came out as gay in July 2022. Speaking to blogger Vitya Kravchenko, Kasatkina mentioned that she would not have been able to hide her sexual orientation in the long term, as she would have been asked to devote so much effort and attention solely to this aspect of her life.
Kasatkina expressed her relief and joy at finally being able to live her life openly and without fear.
“Being at peace with yourself is the only thing that matters and fucking everyone else,” Kasatkina said at the time.
The Russian took a brief break from tennis while enjoying a night of figure skating with her friend Natalia Zabiiako, a competitive pairs skater.
“Switched from tennis to ice skating for a night,” Zabiiako wrote on Instagram.
This isn’t the first time the pair have switched roles as Zabiiako tried his hand at tennis earlier this month.
Daria Kasatkina has split from her longtime coch Carlos Martinez
Daria Kasatkina ended her partnership with coach Carlos Martinez after four years. She revealed the news in Zabiiako’s vlog and spoke about her experience at the recently concluded Qatar Open.
“Of course it was scary. Such a long relationship – working relationship! – it was hard to finish. We worked together for almost four years The competition.” Kasatkina said about her decision.
Carlos Martinez revealed the world No. 8’s extrajudicial activities motivated the split. He expressed that he was not surprised by Daria Kasatkina’s decision to stop working with him, although he was sad about it. He acknowledged that they had a strong connection to the court, but he believed that certain aspects of Kasatkina’s life outside of the court were not conducive to her career.
“It wasn’t a big surprise. I was very sad because I loved working with Dasha. She’s a great girl and a great player. I think our connection on the pitch was really good, but there were things in the end about them did off the pitch,” Martinez said.
Martinez revealed that they had disagreements about how she should act outside of court and he suspected she was growing tired and disagreed with his perspective, which led to their decision to break up.
“In my opinion, these weren’t the best for her career. That’s why she decided to quit, because our last conversation was like that. Then I think she was a bit tired and didn’t agree with my perspective on how she is about things outside of the square to do,” he added.
Daria Kasatkina will be trained by former tennis player Flavio Cipolla in the future.
Edited by
Siddharth Dhananjay