LONDON: Sonay Kartal says it is an honour to have expectations put on her by the public as she continues her fairytale run at Wimbledon.
The 23-year-old Brit is through to the fourth round of a Grand Slam for the first time in her career after beating Diane Parry 6-4, 6-2. Impressively, Kartel was down 1-4 at the start of the match but turned things around by winning 11 out of the next 13 games to seal victory. She is now likely to break into the top 50 for the first time as a result of her run. To put that into perspective, this time last year, she was 298th.
“I kind of trusted in my game that eventually I was going to start to relax into it, whether that was me winning the first set or losing,” she explained about her latest victory.
“I was impressed with how, towards the end of the match, I got to 4-Love up. I felt super calm, super collected, which was weird because when I played Jelena (Ostapenko) in the first round, I started to get nervous toward the end.
“It’s a bigger match and a bigger occasion now. I was pretty pleased with that. I think I did well to calm the nerves.”
Kartal, who is making her fourth Wimbledon appearance, continues to take everything in her stride as she progresses on the Tour. She made her WTA debut in 2022 and last year won her maiden title in Monastir. Including her match against Parry, Kartal has played only 34 Tour-level matches.
As a result of her latest win, Kartal has guaranteed there will be at least one home player in the last 16 of the women’s draw. Emma Raducanu can join her if she beats Aryna Sabalenka later today. As for dealing with the pressure from the public, she describes the situation she is in as an ‘honour.’
“It’s an honour. You’ve got a lot of attention on you, it means you’re doing good things,” she said.
“I’m pretty calm and pretty collected. I don’t think it’s going to affect me too much. I’m just enjoying it all. I’m still pretty young. It’s my first fourth round.
“I feel like I’m going to go out on the court in the next round with nothing to lose at the minute. I’m going to go swinging. I think the pressure that I’ll feel is the pressure I will be putting on myself just wanting to perform as best as I can.”
Kartal next faces Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, who beat Naomi Osaka in her third round match.
