{"id":94392,"date":"2024-04-28T18:23:24","date_gmt":"2024-04-28T16:23:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/?p=94392"},"modified":"2024-04-28T18:23:24","modified_gmt":"2024-04-28T16:23:24","slug":"proud-kasatkina-is-a-woman-on-a-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/proud-kasatkina-is-a-woman-on-a-mission\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Proud’ Kasatkina is a woman on a mission"},"content":{"rendered":"

A while ago, Daria Kasatkina, and her girlfriend Natalia Zabiiako, took it upon themselves to give the world a behind-the-scenes look at life on the professional tennis circuit.<\/span><\/p>\n

Through their YouTube channel, \u2018What the Vlog\u2019, they began documenting every stop they make on tour, sharing a unique insight into what it\u2019s really like playing tennis for a living.<\/span><\/p>\n

The channel has reached over 45,000 subscribers so far and has developed a cult following eager to get an unfiltered view of the WTA tour.<\/span><\/p>\n

For Kasatkina, the vlogs are a way to humanise tennis players to the public, and make fans acknowledge there is more to them than their ability to hit a tennis ball over a net.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to make women\u2019s tennis more popular than men\u2019s. It\u2019s a long way to that but I think it\u2019s nice to show the people, not only women\u2019s tennis, but in general how the tennis players they actually live,\u201d the 10th<\/sup>-seeded Kasatkina said on Sunday after booking her spot in the Mutua Madrid Open fourth round with a straight-sets victory over Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOkay, the top players have got this luxury style of living, but it\u2019s not just that. There\u2019s also a lot of struggle, there are some other parts which are not covered.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think, first of all, it\u2019s interesting and it\u2019s very important to show how it actually is so the people when they see us on court they understand a little bit more what we are going through.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Kasatkina feels it\u2019s easy to forget that athletes are human when you see them excelling on court and she says there\u2019s always a hidden story behind every personality.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy coach once said that behind one not good forehand, there is something else. There is always something else. So to give people the understanding of the situation in general is very important,\u201d added the 26-year-old. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI understand when you see someone only inside this box, only on the court, you see just an athlete. You see the athlete who runs and hits the ball. But I think it\u2019s also nice to show that there is a personality inside, that we\u2019re all different and we\u2019re not only tennis players, we\u2019re also something else.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Kasatkina has been at her battling best this week in Madrid, crawling her way back from a 5-7, 2-5 deficit in her opening match against Cristina Bucsa, before recovering from a break down in each set in her clash with Pavlyuchenkova to come through 7-6(5), 7-5. <\/span><\/p>\n

Her reward is a last-16 showdown with Kazakhstan\u2019s Yulia Putintseva.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe desire to win drives you always. Especially that first match was really interesting,\u201d said Kasatkina.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe level now is so high that there\u2019s no easy matches, never, especially in events like this. I\u2019m really happy with the effort I\u2019m doing, with the way of playing. For me it\u2019s not easy to go this offensive style of play, but I\u2019m really trying to develop it and I\u2019m really proud of myself.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Indeed, Kasatkina has been trying to adopt a more attacking style of play this season and it\u2019s paying off. She has reached three WTA 500 finals in 2024 \u2013 in Adelaide, Abu Dhabi and Charleston \u2013 and since she returned to the top 10 in the summer of 2022, she has maintained her position among the game\u2019s elite, never dropping outside the top 20.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the thing which I\u2019m really proud of myself because once I was top 10 (in the 2018) and then I dropped tragically in the rankings the next year,\u201d she reflects.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt means that I\u2019m developing as a player also that I\u2019m able to keep this level and showing my, more or less, the best every single week.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

When she takes on Putintseva on Monday, Kasatkina will be looking to reach the Madrid quarter-finals for the first time since 2018, when she fell in the last-eight stage to eventual champion Petra Kvitova.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A while ago, Daria Kasatkina, and her girlfriend Natalia Zabiiako, took it upon themselves to give the world a behind-the-scenes look at life on the professional tennis circuit. Through their YouTube channel, \u2018What the Vlog\u2019, they began documenting every stop they make on tour, sharing a unique insight into what it\u2019s really like playing tennis […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":94393,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[875,837,843],"tags":[1026,1091,997,832],"class_list":["post-94392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mutua-news-en","category-noticias-tenis-en","category-noticias-tenis-femenino-en","tag-2024-en","tag-ca","tag-daria-kasatkina-en-2","tag-wta-en-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94392"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94395,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94392\/revisions\/94395"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}