Kasatkina is having all the Instagram fun

Let's get this out of the way now: Daria Kasatkina does Instagram right.

Whether it's saluting her sporting heroes – including Rafael Nadal and Lionel Messi – or creatively sharing on-court news or winking at her detractors, this one knows exactly what she's doing. Her posts can even be explosive.

At other times they are glamorous, in the vein of Brie Larson–esque, relatable girl-next-door fashion.

Plus, she has an adorably self-possessed penchant for starting many of her posts with "Hello dear friends and haters!" In this Age of Outrage – of faceless, nameless trolls ready to manufacture drama at every turn – Kasatkina has found a wry way to disarmingly charm those of that ilk.

The WTA's finalist in Moscow, where she fell to new German No. 1 Julia Goerges, ​found ways to cope with the strikingly different, out-in-the-open logistics of that tournament, in which pros find themselves among spectators as they move from courts to the players' lounge.

"You get surrounded by the people and can't go anywhere," Kasatkina told local reporter, Dmitry Shakhov. "I don't know how Maria [Sharapova] managed to survive." (Sharapova was at the event briefly, dropping an opening-round match in straight sets to Magdalena Rybarikova.)

And so despite a precarious situation "in the wild" in Moscow, Kasatkina ​finishes her season on an upbeat. Indubitably, the 20-year-old Russian has high hopes for 2018.

Follow Jon on Twitter @jonscott9.