Kartal Battles Past Svitolina in Three Sets
Sonay Kartal of Britain defeated world No. 6 Elina Svitolina 6-2, 2-6, 6-4 in the Wuhan Open quarterfinals on Friday at the Dongfeng Voyah Centre Court. The match lasted two hours and three minutes, according to one report, while another stated an hour and 59 minutes. Kartal took the opening set comfortably, dropped the second, and then held her edge in the decider to secure her first WTA 1000 semifinal appearance.[S1][S2]
The 24-year-old is competing in just her third tournament since returning from a six-month injury layoff. She opened her campaign in Wuhan with a straight-sets win over world No. 48 Anhelina Kalinina, then defeated world No. 12 Belinda Bencic, two-time Grand Slam finalist Jasmine Paolini, and now Svitolina. This victory marked her second career top-10 win, adding to a previous win over Mirra Andreeva at the China Open last year.[S1][S2]
A Historic Run for British Tennis
Kartal became only the second British woman to reach a WTA 1000 semifinal since the format was introduced in 2009, following Johanna Konta. She had previously reached the third round at the China Open last week. The Briton now got the better of four-time Grand Slam semifinalist Svitolina for the first time in three meetings.[S1][S2]
In the semifinals, Kartal will face Jelena Ostapenko, who earlier defeated Diana Shnaider 7-6 (6), 6-1 after being down 2-5 in the first set. Ostapenko has been in strong form this week, having also knocked out second seed Jessica Pegula and 11th seed Diana Shnaider. This will be the third career meeting between Kartal and Ostapenko, with their head-to-head currently tied at 1-1, both previous matches having been played on grass.[S1][S2]
