Exclusive: Daria Kasatkina had to reach the bottom to climb back up - 'First it almost killed me and then it saved me'

“First it almost killed me and then it saved me.”

Daria Kasatkina is in a pensive and poetic mood when we sat down to discuss her journey from being an alternate at the WTA Finals four years ago, to qualifying for the prestigious season finale this week in Fort Worth, Texas.

“It was a very long, stressful and tough way. It’s been four years since then, from being an alternate, then thinking about quitting tennis, and coming back to the Finals as a qualifier, that’s amazing,” the 25-year-old Russian told Eurosport earlier this week. “It shows again that you should never give up because you never know what’s around the next corner, so you have to keep pushing even if it’s super tough. If you think that everything is falling apart, maybe tomorrow everything is going to change.”

After Kasatkina cracked the top 10 for the first time at the end of 2018, things didn’t go according to plan and she started to feel like “everything was falling apart”.

When she started working with Spanish coach Carlos Martinez in June 2019, he recalls how dire the situation was with Kasatkina.

“She couldn’t play, it was unbelievable. It was tough because at that time, she wanted, but she couldn’t,” reflected Martinez.

The weight of expectation took its toll on Kasatkina and she felt like she was letting everyone down. But when it came time to move past this difficult period, it was the thought of letting people down that ended up being the driving force behind her comeback.

“I was not enjoying tennis because I couldn’t play," said Kasatkina. "I couldn’t play and enjoy being on court. I wasn’t enjoying the travelling, hitting the ball, nothing. So that’s why [I considered quitting]. But it wasn’t a long period of time, I just had to go through this point and got this experience and I’m happy that I didn’t close that door at that moment.

“In that certain moment, that [not letting people down] was the motivation for me and I’m glad that at that certain moment that worked.

“I would say that I came to this point because of the expectations and because people expected something from me. But then actually this is what also saved me. So you always have to see it from both sides.

“You see the same situation, first it almost killed me and then it saved me. Perspective is everything.”

Martinez believes one of the problems that happened with Kasatkina was that she immediately set very high targets after entering the top 10.

“She won Moscow, the last tournament of the year, and finished the season in the top 10," said the Spaniard. "And then they talked in the preseason and said, ‘Our next goal is to win a Grand Slam and to be in the top three’. I said, ‘But this is ridiculous, she just got into the top 10 and she did two quarters in Grand Slams’.

“What I was saying to her, the problem in my opinion was, you didn’t know how good you were, and why. Also the knowledge of the game, you are super talented that you played without thinking and you have very good abilities, but you have to understand tennis.

“If you want to be a top player, you have to understand tennis. And that’s what we wanted to do from the beginning, to make her understand how to play tennis, to make a base, to make a discipline, to build a pattern of game.

“My goal was, I don’t care about the results, I want to work good every day, and sooner or later, with your abilities you’re going to get results. When? I am not magic, I don’t know, I have no idea.

“And this is how we were working from the beginning, and how we work now. I always say, Dasha, future, I don’t know. Past, I don’t care; it’s just now. Stay in the now and let’s do every day 100 percent. This is the only way.”

Martinez and Kasatkina made use of the time the tour was suspended during the pandemic to better understand each other and talk at length about her game and mentality. They had 20 weeks in a row of training in Barcelona that set the tone for what was to follow.

She snapped a two-and-a-half-year title drought by lifting two trophies in 2021, in Melbourne and St. Petersburg.

Kasatkina then made a promising start to 2022 by making the semi-finals in the Melbourne Summer Set tournament and the Sydney Tennis Classic. But her season really came to life on clay in the spring, where she made the final four in Rome before reaching a maiden Grand Slam semi-final at Roland Garros.

She says things particularly clicked for her when she beat the then world No. 2 Paula Badosa in the last-16 stage in Rome.

“You never know when you feel this click, for me it was the preparation before the match against Paula [Badosa in Rome]. We played very late in the evening, I think we started at 11pm, so we spent all day with my coach talking and especially before the match, before walking on court, we spent a lot of time talking, which helped me a lot,” said Kasatkina.

“He was finding the right words to motivate me, to make me understand how to make finally this step. So he told me that, ‘Today, in this match, you can make this click’. And that stayed in my head and that’s actually what happened. You have to believe in something so it can happen. You have to truly believe in this.”

It has taken her a while but Kasatkina surely believes right now.

For someone that has shown so much promise from a young age, she is now 25 years old, and adopting a more mature approach to her career.

“In the number only,” she jokes when I ask her in what ways she thinks she has matured with age.

“But of course I’m taking things more seriously, I am a bit more objective on things, and I’m taking criticism a bit better than before when I was younger. I’m definitely more professional, I give more to my job than before. I can balance things better. I would call it also experience.

“You never learn from the experience of other people, you have to go through it. That’s what happened to me and I’m glad to get this experience.”

Halfway through the season, Kasatkina gave a heartfelt interview in Russian in which she came out as gay and spoke against her country’s invasion of Ukraine.

“It was an amazing decision [to do that interview],” she says. “It wasn’t unconscious, because the interview was planned, but all we talked about with Victor was a bit more than I expected from myself. I’m really glad the way it went. After that everything went uphill for me and I’m really happy with how people reacted and the feedback I got and everything. It was the right decision because I felt much better after.”

Kasatkina feels there is “an open space” for her to improve and says she values more the journey than the destination. If anything, she never wants to reach the top of the mountain because she is wary of the fact she might not want to strive for more if she ever gets there.

“Of course I want to win, if you don’t want to win, maybe you’re not an athlete inside, maybe you need something different,” she explained.

“Of course results are important, achieving the results makes me happy and losing makes me unhappy. But I see many amazing athletes in the past, they reach their goal and then they don’t know what to do, they’re lost. And I don’t want this, and that’s why I don’t want to put just one benchmark or just one result which if I achieve I will be happy because I will not be happy.

“I will be happy in the moment but then I wouldn’t know what to do. That’s why I want to enjoy the way, enjoy the road, because this is what I’m going to remember in 40 years. Of course results are important and I want to win as many Grand Slams or tournaments as possible, but I don’t want to put one benchmark.”

Martinez is a firm believer in that philosophy and hopes to continue this journey with Kasatkina.

He notes some of the ways in which he feels his charge has improved the most, saying: “One thing is the confidence in herself and that she was more consistent during more time and also she was able to handle tough moments.

“Before, when one tough moment appears, she got frustrated and she disappeared. Now she accepts a little bit more that it can happen and she is fighting against this. So that’s why in my opinion she made this step forward and that’s why she has a lot of margin to keep improving a lot. I think that she can find a way how not to suffer, to try to find solutions and not excuses.”