Top 5 Must-Follow Accounts of 2023, No. 1: Daria Kasatkina and Natalia Zabiiako are tennis' top storytellers with joint vlog

In 2023, we learned that Daria Kasatkina and Natalia Zabiiako aren't just a perfect match as a couple. They're also two of tennis' best content creators.

Kasatkina and Zabiiako, a former figure skater, have been in a relationship since for the last two years, and though the power couple had been posting separately on social media for some time, they took their content game to the next level this year with the launch of their joint YouTube and Instagram accounts, Zabiiako & Kasatkina.

In their longform vlogs, which quickly have become must-see TV for tennis fans and beyond, the two pull back the curtain on the highs and lows of tour life, both in the form of behind-the-scenes tours of tournament venues and Q&A videos during their time off.

Zabiiako serves as lead videographer and editor, as she typically narrates the on-site tours while holding the camera. The two also take turns interviewing a supporting cast of characters, with players and coaches rotating cameo appearances in each episode, and they have, occasionally, used their channel to break news. Their Doha episode, for example, revealed that Kasatkina ended her longtime collaboration with former coach Carlos Martinez.

"This is how I get away a little bit from the pressure thinking about the matches and everything, so I'm taking it as a little bit of not distraction; distraction in a good way. Like a little bit of an art thing," Kasatkina said at Roland Garros.

"We like to do these things, especially the feedback from the people, from the fans, it looks good. They like it. ... Because all these parts are always behind the scenes. Nobody knows about it. 95% of the fans, they see us as tennis players on the tennis court, and they don't know who we are outside of the court and how we live and what's going on, actually, behind the doors, behind the tennis court doors.

"I think it's nice. If I would be, for example, the fan of some sport, I would definitely like to see more about it, more about the personalities of the players. Because we are definitely one person on the tennis court as a tennis player and completely different person outside of the court, and not many people know that."

While Kasatkina confesses that Zabiiako is the brains behind the operation and is "taking it very serious"—"She's really editing music, cutting everything, trying to implement new things always to see if it's the problem with the sound or with the picture," she says—she also serves an important role: chief hype woman.

More than once this year, she shouted out the pair's online exploits when all eyes were on her. Before she played Aryna Sabalenka in the fourth round of the US Open inside Arthur Ashe Stadium, Kasatkina was responsible for the most viral moment of the year when she plugged the vlog in her pre-match interview with ESPN's Rennae Stubbs.

“Well, honestly, we spent the whole day yesterday thinking how to promote my YouTube channel, and I think this is it,” she says to a stunned Stubbs, before dropping the proverbial microphone.

“Guys, subscribe. Just search my surname on YouTube and you’ll find it. And in case the match isn’t going to be interesting, you can always watch the YouTube.”