Russian-born tennis player Daria Kasatkina said that she “didn’t have much choice” about the decision to compete for Australia due to her sexuality.
Kasatkina is preparing to play under a new flag for the first time at the Charleston Open after announcing last week that her application for permanent residency in Australia had been accepted.
In recent years, she has been living in Spain and Dubai while competing as a neutral athlete amid Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
“With everything going on in my previous country, I didn’t have much choice,” Kasatkina said about choosing to switch nationality, per Reuters. “For me, being openly gay, if I want to be myself, I have to make this step, and I did it.”
Kasatkina, currently ranked 12th in the world, came out as gay in July 2022 and is in a relationship with figure skater Natalia Zabiiako.
Though same-sex relationships were decriminalized in Russia in 1993, the tides have recently shifted. In 2013, the country passed a “gay propaganda” law, which has been used to target the LGBTQ community, according to The Council for Global Equality.