Elina Avanesyan received Armenian citizenship, but she still has to repay her debt to her native country.
Recently, changes of citizenship in Russian women’s tennis have been happening surprisingly often. This is despite the fact that in this sport athletes can easily compete at international competitions. However, tennis players, and to a greater extent female tennis players, still continue to abandon Russia, guided by different goals.
The case with Elina Avanesyan received a rather unexpected continuation. The athlete who left for Armenia must now pay the Russian Tennis Federation (RFF) for failure to fulfill the contract, and this could become an extremely interesting precedent.
Showed promise while representing Russia
This year, five of our tennis players changed their citizenship. The country’s former first racket Daria Kasatkina now represents Australia, and the athlete left with a scandal, forgetting to thank her homeland. In addition to her, Maria Timofeeva, Polina Kudermetova and Kamilla Rakhimova decided to compete for Uzbekistan, and Anastasia Potapova for Austria. The last transition was quite unexpected, because Potapova always declared her love for Russia and often visited the country.
Most of these transitions happened literally in recent weeks and months, so it is too early to draw conclusions about the productivity of the change of citizenship. But Kasatkina hardly won in sports terms. Now she occupies 37th place in the world rankings and, according to the feelings, has lost a lot not only in results, but also in the quality of the game itself.
The situation with Elina Avanesyan burst into the public sphere in August last year. First, she changed the flag in her profile on the WTA website to Armenian, and then the native of Pyatigorsk herself confirmed the fact of the transition. At that time, she was in 58th place in the world rankings and generally showed some promise. She made her debut in senior Grand Slam competitions in 2022, qualifying.
In 2023 and 2024, Elina performed well at Roland Garros, both times making it to the fourth round of the tournament. This was a bid for a breakthrough, or at least gradual progress. Avanesyan also won the ITF W100 series tournament in Wiesbaden in 2023, which is currently her main success in her career.
Will such compensation become a trend?
After moving to Armenia, her results dropped sharply. A year and a half later, Avanesyan is only 118th in the world rankings. This was partly due to health problems, but even without them, the girl’s career was clearly not going uphill. And now Elina has another problem. The Armenian representative was ordered to compensate the losses of the Russian Tennis Federation (RFF) in connection with the failure to fulfill the sports training agreement.
— The FTR received a decision from the National Center for Sports Arbitration (NCSA), which on December 9, 2025 considered the case between the FTR and Avanesyan regarding the FTR’s compensation for losses in connection with Avanesyan’s failure to fulfill the sports training agreement. The NCCA considered the dispute for several months and ruled in favor of the FTR. The tennis player will be obliged to reimburse the FTR for the amounts of losses established by the NCSA, compensation from tennis income provided for in the sports training agreement, and other costs of the FTR, the FTR statement says.
The size of the payments is not disclosed, but it is hardly an insignificant amount. However, it’s not just about finances. Avanesyan’s story may become a precedent when athletes fleeing the country will be required to pay money for changing citizenship.
Now, following the example of the FTR, our other federations can follow the example of the FTR, which will necessarily prescribe the conditions for its termination in the agreement. And this, of course, has its own logic. Of course, no one will prohibit athletes from leaving the country, but such a step will become more responsible. So paying compensation seems like a reasonable option and fair to both parties.
