Sonay Kartal ready to grasp Wimbledon chance after impressive return from injury

Sonay Kartal has been making up for lost time in rapid fashion and now the 20-year-old has a Wimbledon breakthrough in her sights.

A talented junior, the Brighton player saw her progress stalled by injury, particularly a wrist problem that stopped her picking up a racket for a year, before returning to the circuit last October.

Unranked at that stage, Kartal won six of the first nine tournaments she played, enough to earn her a call-up to Great Britain’s Billie Jean King Cup squad in April and now a first Wimbledon wild card.

Kartal, who is now ranked 226, said: “Twelve months ago I think I was injured, so I was probably in the physio room or doing rehab. I definitely wasn’t on a tennis court, playing at this kind of level. Even six months ago, this wasn’t an achievable goal. It’s happening fast.

“I’ve always believed my tennis was grand slam level. It was getting to the point where I could prove it. I still believed that when I’ve recovered from whatever injury it is, I’m going to get there, I just didn’t know when.”

As impressive as Kartal’s tennis and results have been recently, she is probably still best known at the moment for a video that surfaced following Emma Raducanu’s US Open victory of the pair battling as nine-year-olds.

A long rally in which the two small girls cover every inch of the court ends with Kartal hitting a forehand winner down the line.

“I remembered that shot,” she said with a smile.

“I was actually walking my dog (when the video came out) and my phone just kept going off. I was getting tagged in all these different things and I was thinking, ‘What’s going on?’

“I looked and saw the LTA had posted it. I was going to tournaments and coaches from all over the world were saying, ‘Oh, you’re the