Sonay Kartal sheds light on the absence of Emma Raducanu to advance Great Britain in the King Billie Jean Cup tie with Germany

Like a supersub of the World Cup, Sonay Kartal came out of the bench to mark its debut and put Great Britain 1-0 against Germany.

When Emma Raducanu withdrew from this group phase with three teams in The Hague which left Kartal to climb into the point of simple No2 and become the 329th player to represent GB.

There were nerves – of course there were – and she could barely pass the ball in front of the service line during the first two games. But thereafter, she locked herself in her rhythmic and stable models and beat Jule Niemeier 6-4, 6-2.

Katie Boulter would face Tatjana Maria in the second single, trying to give GB victory and avoid a decisive double rubber. They play hosts in the Netherlands on Saturday, with the best team of the group that progresses in the September finals in Shenzhen, China.

This opening victory was the next step in a breakthrough a few months for Kartal, 23 years old. There was a time when she was best known to be Raducanu’s opponent in a video that became viral after victory in the United States in 2021.

At the beginning of last year, she was in the hospital with a state of health that she chose not to disclose. Not later last May, she was outside the Top 300, but a first title in Monastir, Tunisia started it and she reached the last 16 in Indian Wells last month.

Emma Raducanu withdrew from the Great Britain team for their qualifications of Billie Jean King Cup

And it was an impressive victory against an experienced player who could be ranked 120th but who was good enough to reach the quarterfinals of Wimbledon in 2022.

Kartal will never be confused with an electric player – she only hit two winners in the opening set – but she is pasty and consistent and strikes with a rare topspin degree in the female game. As Kartal says herself “I don’t play like a typical girl”.

In addition to being his debut in GB, it was also his first match at the level of the tour on Clay. But its style of play – Grinking with a lot of height on the net – should be adapted to red dirt. At that time of the year when British players tended to withered before flowering on the grass, we would be able to expect better things from Kartal.

A generally stoic presence on the ground, Kartal clearly appreciated his first snack of a team dynamic with Harriet Dart, Jodie Burrage and Olivia Nicholls on the sidelines. She smiled several times on them, as in the second set after a delicious volley of drop, an art for which she is not traditionally known.

“I love having guys behind me on the bench,” she said later. “It is a different style of tennis but I absolutely like this environment.”

Niemeier is very massive and tennis of first strike, but Kartal was simply too coherent for her.

The 25 -year -old Dortmund man was driven to distraction, even slapping himself in the face after a missed crucial smash, and two double faults helped Kartal break for the first set in a long 10th game.

Kartal broke out in the second match of the second set and never seems to lose. She could not have started better what could be a long GB career.

Raducanu and Boulter are clearly the first couple of choice, but it could quickly change – and if the Kartal Clay Court game develops, there could be a horses for selection of Captain Anne Keothavong’s courses according to the surface.

In Indian Wells, Kartal came out of the shadow of Raducanu, in The Hague, she slipped comfortably into her shoes.