Sonay Kartal is hoping to repeat her Wimbledon heroics after getting the grass swing off to the perfect start. Twelve months ago, Kartal was ranked outside of the world’s top 250 and was coming back from a health scare, and a fairytale run at Wimbledon saw her shoot up the rankings.
Now, she’s enjoyed one of the most memorable days of her career as she woke up a top 50 player before earning the biggest win of her career at the Queen’s Club. On the day that the WTA Tour returned to London for the first time in 52 years, Kartal became the first Brit to earn a singles win this week as she stunned world No. 16 Daria Kasatkina 6-1 3-6 6-3.
It was Kartal’s best ever win by ranking, and the 23-year-old said: “Obviously [it] was nice waking up to that top 50 today, and yeah, to also get another best win of my career.
“Yeah, it’s definitely up there with one of the more memorable days. I think I’m starting off the grass season well.
“I was excited to be the first Brit on the Andy Murray Arena. Was definitely a court I wanted to play on. I think it’s an incredible court.”
Kartal has great memories on the grass. Last year, she reached the third round of Wimbledon as a qualifier, winning five matches in a row before losing to Coco Gauff.
It was the start of an impressive breakthrough for the Brighton-based player, who won her maiden title in Monastir later in the year. And she’s already hoping to outdo her Wimbledon run when she returns to the All England Club later this month.
The new world No. 50 added: “I think I definitely want to go deep in the tournaments leading up to Wimbledon, and I’d like to definitely equal if not better what I did last year.
“You know, for me, grass is tricky. I’ve got to adapt my game style. So I think if I can bring the level and kind of confidence in my game that I did today, win or lose, I think it would be something that would help me kind of post-grass, as well.”
Kartal will be able to take plenty of confidence from her victory over Kasatkina, a strong grass-court player who won the title in Eastbourne last year and is a former Wimbledon quarter-finalist.
After beating the world No. 16, Kartal said: “I think I was well prepared. I kind of knew what game style she would try and play, and I think there were some aspects where we kind of were similar in some defence.
“Yeah, I just tried, I knew I had to stay ahead and I knew I had to hold my serve. I think there were key moments like that, just making sure I held my serve. And I know a lot of her service games I was getting into, I was losing them ‘just’.
“So I knew I had to always stay ahead and kind of never let her to feel too confident. I think then if she did, I think it would have gone the completely other way. I think when she’s playing confident and she feels like she’s playing well, I think she’s sometimes unplayable.”
Content Source: www.express.co.uk