Brighton and Hove tennis player Sonay Kartal has reached the 4th round at Wimbledon with a straight sets win over French qualifier Diane Parry.
Kartal, 23, won 6-4 6-2 on court number 1, having gone 3-0 down in the first set. She is now in the last 16.
Parry had defeated the 12th seed and world number 15 Diana Shnaider to reach the third round.
In the 1st round, Kartal beat the 20th seed Jelena Ostapenko. It was the third time that she had beaten a top 20 opponent this year.
In the 2nd round, Kartal, who is ranked just outside the top 50, defeated the Bulgarian Viktoriya Tomova 6-2 6-2.
After her 3rd round victory, she faces the 34-year-old Russian player Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova who is currently ranked 50th – one place above Kartal.
The match is scheduled to take place on Sunday (6 July) and the winner will qualify for the quarter-finals.
The official Wimbledon website said: “If her past is anything to go by, she looks unlikely to get carried away with her success.
“Since the age of six, Kartal has been coached by Julie Hobbs, who as Julie Pullin reached the second round of the Wimbledon ladies’ doubles tournament in 2000.
“On the WTA website, Kartal says her first memory of tennis was when she was brought on court to meet Hobbs.
“She fell over and was apparently too scared to try again. But she was persuaded to give it another go and the rest, as the saying goes, is history.
“Ben Reeves has joined the coaching team and there is more assistance from outside but Kartal still trains at the Pavilion and Avenue Tennis Club, in Hove.
“Even though she played many matches against (Emma) Raducanu, Kartal admits she wasn’t the best junior and so, in the early days, wasn’t funded by the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) like many of her peers.”
She said: “I think when I was younger, I don’t think I really deserved to have the funding, to be honest with you.
“I was too inconsistent. I don’t think my game was there. I was injured a lot of the time. No, I don’t think I really deserved it at all.
“When I was growing up, I did quite a lot of tournaments on my own just because I couldn’t afford to pay a coach week in and week out.
“I think it was great. It helped me develop as a teenager, grow up super-fast, made me much more mature (and) hold myself accountable to a lot of things.”
She also spoke about the advantages of playing in a grand slam tournament at Wimbledon, saying: “Having a home slam, I think that’s one arena I really want to perform well in, in front of the people that mean the most to me, friends and family and everyone.
“Also, it’s a surface (grass) that doesn’t really come naturally to me. I have to really think and adapt my game style which I think is also going to help me develop beyond this tournament as well.”
