Who is Sonay Kartal? Rising star of British tennis grew up alongside Emma Raducanu
For too long she was the other kid in early match footage featuring a young Emma Raducanu, but Sonay Kartal is now very much a star in her own right.
The 23-year-old from Brighton battled to a 7-5, 2-6, 7-5 win against world No 5 Mirra Andreeva in Beijing, as she reached her first quarter-final at a WTA 1000 event and recorded the biggest win of her career.
“She’s a top-10 player for a very good reason, she made me play my best tennis today. I’m super happy with the level I managed to dig it out in the end,” said Kartal.
“I think the way I carry myself on the court is one of my biggest assets. You could look down the other end at me and you wouldn’t really know if I’m winning or losing.
“I just tried to put that second set behind me. She played some great tennis so I just tried to level it out in the third set and keep the scoreboard pressure as high as I could.”
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This success is all the more remarkable given the health problem Kartal suffered with at the start of last year that could have had a major impact on her hopes of continuing in professional tennis and her rise is also a triumph for players who are not blessed with the height and stature you may feel is necessary to make it at the top of the sport.
Kartal is short in stature and took time to find her feet at the top of the game after playing a lot of matches on the ITF World Tennis Tour in recent years.
Her battling qualities and apparent ability to hold her nerve when many of her opponents are battling inner demons is a quality that is allowing her to compete with the best, as she admits she had to change her approach and show more daring on court to take on players of Andreeva’s class.
“I just tried to be unpredictable and just in big moments play brave tennis. It was definitely a physical match, I think we were both feeling it a bit, but proud of how I stuck in there,” said Kartal after the biggest win of her career.
“The last couple of years I have been on the ITF circuit, so I have been thrown into it pretty fast, and I realised the game style I was playing to be at this level was not good enough.
“I have been working on being more aggressive in the bigger moments and I think it’s maybe not something I have been willing to do so much in recent matches.
“But I knew in this match I had no choice, so I was just trying to accept that maybe this match might not go my way but I am going to play the way I need to play to get the wins later on.
“I am happy it worked out. I was definitely playing braver tennis, which is something I need to do more of.”
When she spoke to Tennis365 a couple of years ago, she looked back on her early matches against Raducanu and suggested her 2021 US Open win was an inspiration for all British players.
“I grew up playing Emma, so it proves to me that the dream of making it in tennis is not too far away,” Kartal told us.
“It has put into perspective for all the British players just how possible it could be to break through.
“Emma’s success is just crazy. The fact that she hadn’t even won a single match in a WTA event and then went out and won the US Open… it was just crazy.
“I sent her a text to say well done after the win in New York and there is no jealousy from my end. Just a realisation that we can all do it if we push hard and take our chances.”
Kartal may have got fed up answering questions about her junior matches against Raducanu, but she accepts the questions are inevitable.
“I remembered the match when we were nine and the point that was replayed so many times so well. Luckily I hit the winning shot at the end of it,” she added.
“The interest in those videos went around the world and I was in Turkey two weeks ago playing an event and some Italian coaches came up to me as they knew I was the girl on the clips playing Raducanu.
“My story is a little different to Emma’s because I have had some injury problems that have hampered me, but we can all take inspiration from her success.”
Kartal is now realising all her potential and maybe even exceeding the expectations many had for her, with her hopes of finishing the year ranked inside the top 50 now a realistic target.
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