Sonay Kartal became the British number one for the first time on Monday, after an extraordinary week at the Wuhan Open where she reached the biggest final of her career in just her third tournament back from injury.
Six months ago, the 24-year-old Briton could not stand up and brush her teeth without “being in agony.” A stress fracture in her back caused the pain. It eventually subsided, but Kartal still faced a long road to full recovery that demanded patience and hard work. She made her return to competitive action a little under a month ago.
“In the first month or so, I was at home in bed – sometimes I had good days but there were also bad days where I wasn’t really able to walk without some form of pain,” Kartal said.
“It was a slow process and it makes you think you do take every day things for granted a bit.”
A career-best run in Wuhan
Given where Kartal stood six months ago, and how long she spent out injured, reaching the Wuhan final is a huge achievement. The event is a WTA 1,000 tournament, in the tier directly below the Grand Slams, and it attracts the strongest fields on the women’s tour.
Kartal knocked out a series of opponents with considerable pedigree, including current top-10 players and former Grand Slam champions. She then ran out of steam against this year’s French Open runner-up, Maja Chwalinska. Kartal lost the final after leading by a set and a break, a brutal defeat that will undoubtedly sting. She quickly acknowledged, though, that the bigger picture is already more positive than she could have predicted.
Ranking leap through the protected system
Kartal was ranked 54th in the world when the back issue struck at Indian Wells in March. She used a protected injury ranking, which the WTA gives to players who have been out for six months or more, to compete in Wuhan.
Her 650 points as runner-up sent her ranking soaring from 170th to 49th. She now closes in on her career high of 44th, which she reached in July 2025 after getting to the last 16 at Wimbledon.
The jump shows the WTA’s special ranking rule working as intended: it gives a player a fair platform to re-establish her position after a prolonged and unavoidable absence.
Regaining her ranking just 10 matches into her comeback will carry real significance for the 2027 season. Kartal will no longer need a protected ranking to enter tournaments such as the Australian Open. That gives her greater choice over when and where to play as she continues to manage her workload.
On Monday, she pulled out of the Japan Open in Osaka, where she was due to play her first-round match on Tuesday.
“My goal on the Asian swing was just to try to defend those points I had from last year and make the use of the protected ranking worthwhile,” said Kartal, who also won two matches at the China Open in Beijing.
“I think I’ve gone above and beyond that. The goal has been achieved this week and I’m in a good spot for the rest of the year and next year.”
A timely boost for British tennis
Kartal’s re-emergence arrives at a good moment for British tennis. She missed three of the four majors, and no British woman went past the second round of a Grand Slam tournament in 2026.
Kartal has done that only twice in her career. She reached the third round at Wimbledon in 2024 and went one stage further last year. In Wuhan, she showed she can thrive at elite level.
She became the first British player to reach a WTA 1000 final since Johanna Konta in 2019. Despite losing to the 22nd-ranked Chwalinska, she still recorded the best result by a British woman since Emma Raducanu won the US Open title in 2021.
Alongside Arthur Fery’s extraordinary run to the Wimbledon semi-finals in the summer, it gives the nation’s tennis fans a much-needed bright spot.
Like Fery, Kartal lacks the height and power that many of the leading players on both tours are genetically given. She still has enough damaging tools to anchor her inside the top 50. In Wuhan, her consistent hitting from the baseline, supreme athleticism and level-headedness were the keys to her success.
Staying fit over the coming months will be another important factor.
Credit to the team behind the comeback
Kartal says the stress fracture in her back has completely healed. Her team say she “worked her socks off, 9-5 all the time” during rehabilitation to make sure she could hit the ground running on her return.
After collecting the runners-up trophy, Kartal quickly paid tribute to her coach Ben Reeves, fitness coach Ian Aylward and physio Dani Gillanders.
“If it wasn’t for them I wouldn’t be here,” Kartal said.
“It makes it even better that the three people who helped me get back to fitness and fixed my back are with me. It’s been a special week for all of us.”