Gracheva set to defect from Russia, applies for French citizenship ahead of entering WTA top 50

Russian tennis player Varvara Gracheva applied for French citizenship as her career continues to blossom with a top 50 ranking to be official next week.

The Russian has been enjoying a lot of success this year and will make her top 50 debut next week then the rankings get updated following the Miami Open. It's will be a new career high for her and proof of her tremendous improvement this year. It's hard to find a player that made a bigger leap this year with the Russian set to change citizenships as well.

According to reports, she applied for French Citizenship after living in the country since 2016. That would make her the second-highest-ranked French player only behind Caroline Garcia who is alone in the top 60. The 22-year-old is set to become the first major player to change citizenship after something like that was floated last year when Russian invaded Ukraine.

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It's nothing new as last year the vice-president of the Kazakhstani Tennis Federation claimed that they received applications from 30 Russian tennis players to change their passports. One prominent example is Russian-born Rybakina who has played for Kazakhstan since 2018 winning Wimbledon in the year she would have been banned from it had she retained her original passport.