bring her 2025 season to an early end, declaring she was \u201cat breaking point\u201d<\/a>, with her ranking falling out of the top 32 in the process. It means she is set to miss being seeded at the Australian Open.<\/p>\nHer first match at home as an Australian came in Brisbane, against fellow ex-Russian Anastasia Potapova – who bizarrely seemed to copy Kasatkina\u2019s exact post when she announced her move to represent Austria late last year.<\/p>\n
Kasatkina\u2019s serve let her down in a 7-5 4-6 6-4 defeat, with 16 double faults proving too much to overcome, but experiencing the Aussie fan support for the first time meant more than a win ever could.<\/p>\n
\u201cStepping on court and I heard the cheer – I almost started crying but I was able to hold it,\u201d the 28-year-old said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to win so much and feel this extra energy.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been through a tough year. Now I\u2019m fine, but I have to get out of that deep hole.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daria Kasatkina of Australia celebrates in her round one match against Anastasia Potapova of Austria during day one of the 2026 Brisbane International at Pat Rafter Arena on January 04, 2026 in Brisbane, Australia. (Photo by Albert Perez\/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
Kasatkina will play the Adelaide International next week before beginning her 11th Australian Open campaign, but first as a local.<\/p>\n
\u201cNobody\u2019s putting this pressure on me, only I do because I want to represent Australia and when it\u2019s not happening, I feel bad,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to pay back to the country. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m getting to know the Australian mentality; the people here, they support because they want to, they don\u2019t expect you to go and win slams.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just the way I am.\u201d<\/p>\n
However it wasn\u2019t all bad news for the Aussies with Ajla Tomljanovic recording a strong 6-1 6-3 win over Frenchwoman Elsa Jacquemot.<\/p>\n
The former world No.32 has faced mental and physical demons ever since a lingering knee injury which struck at the peak of her career in late 2022.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like there\u2019s certain mental battles that people don\u2019t see, where I really struggled to just enjoy what I\u2019ve been doing for this long, and I really had to dig deep to just find it again,\u201d she said post-match.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I was really fortunate that I did. Middle of the season, I just made a bit of a switch in my head and just looked at everything in a way that I\u2019m just grateful to still be here.\u201d<\/p>\n
With her victory Tomljanovic earned a second-round clash with world No.19 and former French Open finalist Karolina Muchova.<\/p>\n
On the men\u2019s side, Aussies James Duckworth, Dane Sweeny and Rinky Hijikata all qualified for the main draw – the latter after top seed Matteo Arnaldi withdrew.<\/p>\n
In the tournament proper, local hope Aleksandar Vukic was quickly dispatched by two-time US Open semi-finalist Frances Tiafoe 6-2 6-2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An emotional Daria Kasatkina says she held back tears walking onto an Australian court representing her new homeland…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":388711,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-388710","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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