One of the young hopes of Bulgarian tennis, 19-year-old Sesil Karatancheva, will compete in international tennis events for Kazakhstan not Bulgaria, private national broadcaster bTV said on January 9 2009.

The reason for the change of countries, according to Karatancheva's father and manager Radoslav Karatanchev, was purely financial. She will get $65 000 this year for playing for the Central Asian country, as well as additional bonuses when winning.

"It's about providing Sesil with security and good-enough conditions for preparation," he told bTV. The news about Karatancheva taking the Kazakh citizenship first appeared in the summer of 2008 but back then she claimed she was just thinking on the offer. Now she has agreed on it.

The news about Karatancheva choosing to play for Kazakhstan comes two weeks after her two-year ban on participating in tennis tournaments expired. She had a good start of the season reaching the second round at the WTA series in Brisbane, Australia.

On December 20 2005, the French sports newspaper L'Equipe reported that Karatancheva had failed a drug test earlier in the year at the French Open and that she had appeared in front of a three-person panel of judges to explain the results.

The newspaper also claimed that Karatantcheva revealed that she was pregnant at the time of the test, which would explain the high levels of the nandrolone steroid in her system. Karatantcheva has denied all allegations, saying "I am shocked. I have not appeared before judges of the international federation."

Come January 11 2006, the International Tennis Federation ITF imposed a two-year ban after drug tests for nandrolone came back positive. Karatancheva has continuously defended herself, arguing that the test results can be attributed to the fact that she was pregnant, but on July 3, 2006, the Court of Arbitration for Sport denied her appeal to overturn the ban.

In its ruling, the court reasoned that the level of nandrolone was found in concentrations that were inconsistent with her explanation.