Sonay Kartal is adding the wild to the wildcard and is a massive fan favourite at Wimbledon as the Brighton 23-year-old reached Round 3 after hammering Bulgaria’s Viktoria Tomova in straight sets. She has asked the public at SW19 to send in their suggestions for her 15th tattoo, and assured that 90 % she will listen to the ideas and get them inked.
The British wildcard is filling up sidecourts after she upset 20th seed Jelena Ostapenko, and being praised for her game which is extremely no-nonsense and very efficient. Mirror.co.uk quoted her as a fan fave “wearing her customary buttoned up, baggy T-shirt reminiscent of 1990s players. She currently has 14 tattoos and promised after her first round victory to give more information on her next inking if she progressed further.”
She was originally from Sidcup in south London with Turkish and English heritage, but grew up in Brighton and couldn’t afford regular coaching. But tattoos have been her constant accompaniments. “I’m open to suggestions. Like if people throw me some good ideas, I will definitely consider them – 90% I would end up going with one of those ideas. If people want to send me their ideas, I will most likely pick one of them and will probably chuck it on somewhere,” she told mirror.co.uk.
Her current tattoos include an eagle, a snake, the number 2022 to honour the year she first played in four Grand Slams, and assorted others “on her knuckles which have no meaning. At the French Open, she got a bee inked alongwith two quotes, ‘Time is everything we have and don’t’ & ‘the show must go on.’
Super Sonay does it in style 💥
Sonay Kartal defeats Viktoriya Tomova 6-2, 6-2 to reach the third round for the second year in a row 💪#Wimbledon pic.twitter.com/YnblD2AdHd
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 2, 2025
She told the Mirror.co.uk that her favourite was her doggie’s pawprint. After the first round, she went into great detail on how it was done. “I have one on the back of my arm which is one of my first dog, a massive golden retriever. I bought some doggy ink and got his paw print downsized, got it tattooed and put it into a little picture on the back of my arm.”
Sonay tentatively has one planned for the number 329 – her ‘colour holder’ number from the Billie Jean King Cup, after debuting for Great Britain.
Tim Henman, former British number one and Wimbledon semi-finalist, told BBC, “Sonay Kartal has been brilliant (over the last 12 months), I love her story, I love her journey and I think she is such an important role model because she has done it the hard way. She has been out there grinding in some of the smaller events with her ranking down in the 300s, looking for those ranking points to break through into bigger tournaments to earn more prize money to invest in your game,” he said.
“Hopefully Sonay can continue to build on that and move her ranking higher and higher towards the top of the game.”
Story continues below this ad
Speaking to the BBC on Wednesday after her victory at Wimbledon, Kartal said she wanted to me known as more than a two weeks player. “I think even last year, I wanted to back up the run I had last year. I didn’t want people to think that it was just one good, two good weeks out of the year. At this tournament I really wanted to show that I’m at this level now, I can consistently play. I think after the match against Jelena, I had so much confidence. I feel like with each match on the grass and out here, I’m growing in confidence.”
Kartal likes to keep it chill on court. “On the court I’m pretty tunnel vision, I don’t give too much away and just like to keep calm and try and see out the match. But no, I think that the last five months has obviously, you know, kind of thrown myself onto the scene. Top 50, playing all the bigger matches, and I think this year I made a conscious effort that I only wanted to play the bigger matches. Just getting used to playing the best players on tour day in, day out. I think that each match I’m growing in confidence, I feel like I’m playing better, I feel like I’m playing with more freedom and much more confidence in my game,” Sonay said.
