The hope of Russian tennis will receive a passport of a foreign country. What is known about this?

The issue of changing a passport has been relevant in Russian sports for a year now, but so far this process has not become widespread. Although athletes under suspension are looking for different options.

Found such a rising star of our tennis Varvara Gracheva, who will soon become French.

Gracheva may play for France at Roland Garros 2023

Last year, sports citizenship was changed, for example, by cyclist Pavel Sivakov, chess player Alina Kashlinskaya, racing driver Robert Shvartsman. A recent example is another chess player, world champion Alexandra Kosteniuk, who will play under the Swiss flag. And these are not all examples of such transitions. On the one hand, athletes can be understood. Their careers are now in jeopardy. On the other hand, the flight under the banner of another country does not look very cool.

In any case, as long as there is such a loophole, it will be used. The French publication L’Equipe reported that Gracheva had completed her application for French citizenship. The 22-year-old athlete has been living and training in Cannes since 2016 and has long thought about getting a French passport.

L’Equipe assures that Gracheva meets the criterion according to which, in order to obtain citizenship, you need to live in the country for five years, and she passed the French language exam back in November 2022. At the moment, her documents go through the French Ministry of the Interior.

In France, they expect that Barbara will be able to represent the new country already at Roland Garros at the end of May this year. Moreover, there is an option in which Gracheva will perform in the Billie Jean King Cup as part of the French team, if it makes it to the finals.

Photo: © Robert Prange / Contributor / Getty Images Sport / Gettyimages.ru

There is no trend of flight from Russia yet

But the tennis player herself has not yet spoken out about this and, in theory, can continue to represent Russia. The fact is that it is not forbidden to have dual citizenship of Russia and France. Permission to obtain it is prescribed in Art. 6 and 61-63 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation. France also recognizes dual citizenship, and with any country in the world.

The loss of Gracheva, if it happens, will not be critical, but still significant for Russian sports. She is ranked 54th in the WTA rankings and sixth among Russians. In March of this year, she reached the final of the WTA tournament in America for the first time, but lost there to Ukrainian Marta Kostyuk. At Grand Slam competitions, Varvara has not yet overcome the third round barrier, although Gracheva has really decent potential. In recent tournaments, she won 14 matches out of 16.

For now, it is not worth sounding the alarm that athletes are fleeing Russia. In most cases, those who applied for a change of citizenship had been preparing for this for a long time, even before the current events began. Of course, there is the example of chess star Alexandra Kosteniuk, whose loss will hit Russian sports. Otherwise, it is premature to talk about a catastrophe. The same tennis players move around the world a lot, and having two passports in such situations simply makes life easier.