Moscow-born player Varvara Gracheva is understood to be in the process of switching her citizenship to France with the hope that she will be able to represent her new country at Roland Garros later this year, according to reports.
Newspaper L’Equipe and Bein Sports have both confirmed that the 22-year-old is in the process of finalizing her application to become a French citizen after passing her exam last November. It is understood that the file was completed on March 5th and has been sent to the Ministry of Interior which is the government department that decides on citizenship applications. However, it is unknown when a final decision will be made.
Gracheva, who is currently at a ranking high of No.54 in the world, has been training in the French city of Cannes since 2016 and has lived in France for seven years. It is understood that the tennis player has been thinking about applying for Citizenship for some time and her decision to do so is unrelated to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine which began last year.
Should Gracheva receive approval, she could become the second-highest French tennis player on the WTA Tour after Caroline Garcia. The country currently has three players in the top 100 – Garcia at No.4, Alize Cornet at No.66 and Oceane Dodin at No.93.
She is currently playing at the Miami Open where she will play Petra Kvitova in the fourth round on Monday. Gracheva, who is yet to win a WTA title, has already scored three wins over top 10 opposition this season. She has defeated Daria Kasatkina twice, as well as Ons Jabeur.
Reacting to the report, the head of the Russian Tennis Federation has brushed aside the significance of potentially losing Gracheva. Shamil Tarpischev told RBC-Sport that such a situation happening will not be a ‘heavy loss’ for his federation due to their depth of players.
“While I am at the training camp in Turkey, I have no information about the transition of Varvara Gracheva, so I cannot comment on anything. In any case, there are no heavy losses for us,” he said.
“We have a lot of talented guys. We are working for the next generation.”
Gracheva is yet to publicly comment on the matter. Earlier this year she contested her first WTA Final in Austin which she lost in straight sets to Marta Kostyuk.
