Kartal stuns Svitolina in three sets to reach Wuhan semi-finals
Sonay Kartal beat fifth seed Elina Svitolina 6-2, 2-6, 6-4 to reach the Wuhan Open semi-finals on Friday, 16 October. It is her first semi-final at a WTA 1000, the regular tour events that sit one rung below the four Grand Slams. BBC Sport
Kartal struck first and struck late. She took the opening set in confident style, then lost the second as Svitolina, the Ukrainian world No. 6, found her range. Svitolina took a medical timeout for treatment on her right arm during the match, but stayed in the fight to level at one set all.
The decider went with serve until the very end. Kartal held her nerve at 5-4 and broke Svitolina's serve to close out the quarter-final. No tiebreak needed. Job done.
What makes this stand out is the road back. Kartal missed more than six months with a stress fracture in her back before returning to competition. She is playing in Wuhan on a protected injury ranking, a system that lets long-term injured players enter events on their old ranking rather than starting from scratch.
This was her sixth win in eight matches since that return. She had not dropped a set in Wuhan before Friday. That run included wins over Swiss ninth seed Belinda Bencic and Italian 15th seed Jasmine Paolini, the former Wimbledon finalist, with the Paolini win coming 6-2, 6-0. Sky Sports
There was history to overturn too. Svitolina led their head-to-head 2-0 before Wuhan, including a win over Kartal in Auckland at the start of the year. WTA Kartal answered with questions Svitolina could not solve, changing pace, holding the baseline and picking her moments to attack.
Next comes Jelena Ostapenko. The Latvian beat 11th seed Diana Shnaider 7-6 (8-6), 6-1 in her quarter-final, pulling away ruthlessly after a tight first set decided in a tiebreak, first to seven points with a two-point lead. Ostapenko won the 2017 French Open and brings heavy, flat hitting that rushes opponents.
For fans, this is a classic contrast. Kartal constructs rallies point by point. Ostapenko tries to end them early. The winner reaches the Wuhan final, and for Kartal, a player rebuilding her season and her ranking, the stakes could hardly be clearer.
