Two qualifiers made it into the finals of the WTA tournaments in Mexico and Tunisia, but only one came away with a winner’s trophy, while the other becomes her nation’s new No 1…
Britain’s Sonay Kartal won her first WTA Tour title on Sunday at the Jasmin Open in Tunisia when she defeated Slovakia’s Rebecca Sramkova, 6-3 7-5, in just under 2 hours of play.
The 22-year-old controlled her nerves in the tense final, and will now move into the world’s Top 100 for the first time on Monday, rising 65 spots to No 96.
“It’s unbelievable,” Kartal said, after coming through qualifying, and dropping just one set in Monastir. “I’ve had such a good week this week, played some of my best tennis this week, had some of my best wins. I feel like each match I’ve kind of grown and got better.”
The WTA 250 championship final featured first-time WTA singles finalists on both sides of the net, but it was Kartal, who hails from Brighton, who lifted the trophy, becoming the first qualifier on the WTA Tour this season to do so.
After an early wobble, dropping her serve in the opening game, the Brit steeled herself to get herself quickly back on track and grab control of the first set, winning the last 3 games and running out to a 4-1 lead in the second before her serve began to let her down.
She won 20 of the last 22 points at the end of that run, but Sramkova, the World No 136, sensed a chance, and applied pressure on the Brit, as she rallied to level at 4-4 in what was now a thrilling contest.
Kartal steadied herself again, using her backhand to break for 5-4, and she served for the match in the lengthy next game, but Sramkova wasn’t finished yet, firing a winning forehand to bring the score back level at 5-5.
The young Brit eventually wrested the lead back with a break of her own for 6-5, and successfully served out the match on her second try, winning with a string of strong forehands.
Kartal had overcome the come-back surge, breaking her 27-year-old opponent a total of 4 times in a second set that lasted 71 minutes, and eventually sealing the win in exactly an hour and 59 minutes.
“I tried so hard to put the occasion and the score behind me,” Kartal said afterwards. “I tried to treat it like any other match as much as I could. I just tried to stay consistent, and not try to let the occasion get the better of me.”
She is the second British player to win a title in 2024, alongside Katie Boulter, who landed the singles titles in Nottingham and San Diego.
“I started the year with the goal of being top 150, so now I have passed that,” added Kartal, who was ranked 298 before reaching the 3rd-round of Wimbledon this year. “I’m just trying to end the year in the Top 100. It’s to put myself in the best position for Australia at the start of the year.”
Kartal’s ranking had fallen outside the Top 300 due to health problems earlier in the year, but she is signalling an impressive break-through return.
After losing to 2nd-seeded American Coco Gauff at Wimbledon, the Brit returned to the lower tiers and won 2 ITF events in a row at the National Tennis Centre in Roehampton, to move herself up the rankings.
She fell just short of a place in the US Open main draw with a defeat in the 3rd and final round of qualifying, but quickly resurged in Monastir, taking full advantage of a weak draw for a WTA tournament, in which only one of her 7 opponents was ranked inside the Top 100, World No 74, Jaqueline Cristian from Romania, while she also benefited from two retirements through injury along the way, one in the 2nd-round of qualifying and the other in the semi-final.
Great Britain now has 4 women in the Top 100, the first time since July 2012, with Katie Boulter at No 36, Raducanu at 70, and Harriet Dart at 71, emulating Heather Watson, Anne Keothavong, Laura Robson and Elena Baltacha 12 years ago.
Poland’s Magdalena Frech captured her first WTA tour title on Sunday, beating Australian qualifier Olivia Gadecki, 7-6(5) 6-4, to lift the trophy at the WTA 500 tournament in Guadalajara.
The No 5 seed had pulled off her biggest win of the week in the semi-finals on Saturday, upsetting the 4th-seeded Frenchwoman, Caroline Garcia, in a tight two-setter, 7-6(4) 7-5.
Her final opponent, Gadecki, proved equally tough, despite being ranked a 153-ranked qualifier, but she had taken out No 2 seed Danielle Collins en route to the title match, as well as former US Open champion Sloane Stephens.
Ranked 43, Frech, though, is enjoying a break-through season herself, reaching her first singles final in the clay court tournament in Prague last month, and then making her first hard court quarter-final in Monterrey before going all the way to her first hard court final in Mexico.
The final was a neck-and-neck affair, and the 73-minute first set could have gone either way.
Frech served twice to stay in the set, at 4-5 and 5-6, and was also 2 points from losing it in the tiebreak at 4-5, but she squeaked out the last 3 points, with Gadecki missing a forehand slice approach shot into the net on her first set point.
The Australian came out swinging in the second, immediately breaking before holding for a 2-0 lead, but Frech stormed back, winning 6 of the next 8 games to close the final out in straight sets.
The Pole, who got broken while she was serving for the match at 5-3, broke right back to love to seal the deal, including a perfect backhand passing shot down the line on match point, and she dropped to the court in celebration.
“I just want to say that dreams do come true,” Frech told the crowd as she accepted her trophy, and tried to balance a big sombrero that came with it on her head. “It’s my first WTA title, and it’s really, really amazing!”
The 26-year-old, who also won a lower-level event in Massachusetts in 2021, became the 4th Polish woman to win a singles title this century, joining World No 1 Iga Swiatek, Magda Linette and Agnieszka Radwanska.
Gadecki, who arrived in Mexico with just 2 career wins over Top 100 players, recorded 4 this week, while she had not won a tour-level match since January, and now had won 6 on the trot to get to the final.
The 152nd-ranked Australian will break into the Top 100 in the world rankings for the first time, following her runner-up finish, having narrowly failed to become the first qualifier to win a singles title at WTA 500 level since 2021, when Liudmila Samsonova won at Berlin.
“I am so happy that I have been able to play my first final here in Guadalajara, and I can’t wait to come back,” Gadecki said during the presentation ceremony.
She may have fallen short of her bid to become the first Australian since her mentor Ash Barty to win a WTA Tour title, but Gadecki leaves Mexico as her country’s new No 1, now ranked 88, and surpassing veteran Daria Saville.
The right-hander, who walked away from tennis for a period as a 15-year-old to focus on her education, has less than 100 ranking points to defend for the rest of 2024, and is in a strong position to earn direct entry into the Australian Open for the first time.
