First Top 10 win, first WTA 1000 QF: Kartal stuns Andreeva in Beijing
On her China Open debut, Sonay Kartal has added another pair of milestones to her resume.
The 23-year-old Briton notched her first career Top 10 win and advanced to the quarterfinals of a WTA 1000 tournament for the first time after edging No. 4 seed Mirra Andreeva 7-5, 2-6, 7-5 in a 2-hour, 25-minute barnburner on Lotus Court.
Beijing: Scores | Draws | Order of play
Kartal had previously made the last 16 of both Indian Wells and Wimbledon this year, but this result marks her first tour-level quarterfinal since capturing her maiden title in Monastir last September. The World No. 81 has also returned to form in style in China after going 0-3 on the North American hard courts in August. Kartal snapped that streak in the Billie Jean King Cup Finals two weeks ago, and has also defeated No. 14 seed Daria Kasatkina and Maya Joint in Beijing. She is the first British quarterfinalist in Beijing since Johanna Konta in 2016.
Andreeva now owns a 16-3 record against players ranked outside the Top 50 in 2025. The three losses have all come since June: to Lois Boisson in the Roland Garros quarterfinals, to Taylor Townsend in the US Open third round and now to Kartal.
"The way I carry myself on the court is one of my biggest assets, I think," Kartal said when asked about her cool demeanor in the on-court interview. "You can look down the other end of the court and you won't really know if I'm winning or losing. I just tried to put that second set behind me -- she played some great tennis. I just tried to level it out in the third set and keep the scoreboard pressure as far as I could."
In the last eight, she will face No. 26 seed Linda Noskova, who powered past Anastasia Potapova 6-2, 6-4 in 1 hour and 27 minutes earlier. Noskova, 20, won their only previous meeting 6-4, 6-2 in the second round of Rome in May. Both players will be bidding to reach their first semifinal at WTA 1000 level or above; Noskova was previously also a quarterfinalist at the 2024 Australian Open and Dubai in February.
"I tried to be super unpredictable": A clash between two players who thrive in long exchanges and who rely on shot selection rather than pure power came down to tactics, Kartal told press.
"I watched a lot of her matches so I was aware of what she was going to try and do, how she was going to try and attack my game style," she said. "So I just tried to be super unpredictable and in big moments play brave tennis ... I've been working on being more aggressive in the bigger moments -- maybe not something I've been willing to do much in recent matches, but in this match I knew I had no choice. I was accepting that this match might not go my way, but at least I'm going to play the way I need to play in order to get the wins later on."
That was evident throughout the match. In the first set, Kartal saved two break points against her in the third game, the first by finishing a lung-buster of a rally with a smash. There were no further break points until the final game. Kartal found a superb pass to get an opening on the Andreeva serve, and the 18-year-old cracked with a double fault and consecutive forehand errors to concede the set.
Andreeva regained her composure immediately with a steely second set in which she focused on shortening the rallies with sharp volleying. It paid off with an immediate break, and Andreeva never relinquished the momentum. Serving out the set, her confidence was on full display as she won the best point of the match, weaving a web of a drop shot, a lob and finally an angled pass past Kartal.
A knife-edge decider saw no breaks of serve, and only one break point -- saved by Andreeva in the second game -- through 5-5. There, Kartal delivered the aggression she wanted at exactly the right time: an audacious backhand winner down the line to save break point, and another to hold for 6-5. A cagy final game saw Andreeva save a first match point after a wild exchange in which Kartal's final lob drifted just long. The World No. 81 kept coming, though: a forehand winner set up a second match point, and it was converted as Andreeva sent a forehand wide.