Sonay Kartal Stuns Belinda Bencic in Wuhan as Injury Comeback Gathers Pace

Britain's Sonay Kartal has served notice that she is back to her best. Just weeks after returning from a six-month layoff, the 24-year-old knocked world No 12 Belinda Bencic out of the Wuhan Open in the second round, winning 6-0 7-5 for one of the finest results of her career.

Match at a glance

Result: Sonay Kartal bt Belinda Bencic 6-0 7-5
Round: Wuhan Open, second round
Significance: Kartal's second-best win by ranking, behind her victory over then world No 5 Mirra Andreeva in Beijing last year
Ranking boost: currently No 170, she is set to climb around 40 places

A perfect start, then a fight

Kartal could hardly have opened the match better, taking the first set without dropping a single game. Bencic, a Wimbledon semi-finalist last year, regrouped at the start of the second and moved 3-1 ahead, threatening to drag the contest into a decider.

The Brighton-born player refused to let it slip. She clawed her way back level, then broke the Swiss at 5-5 before serving out the match in straight sets.

Kartal admitted that keeping up the pressure after such a dominant first set was the trickiest part: "A match like that it's always tough to keep the scoreboard pressure when you've come out firing. Very happy with how I played in that match, the composure. I think I saw snippets from my tennis six months ago."

Back from a stress fracture

The win is all the more striking given what preceded it. A stress fracture in her back sidelined Kartal for half the season, and she only returned to competition last month at the Billie Jean King Cup Finals in Shenzhen. Last week she reached the third round in Beijing, and now she has added a top-15 scalp.

In her own words

"I trusted that I would be able to get my level back, I just didn't know how quickly. I can produce the level, but can I sustain it – I think that's going to be the hardest challenge. I'm happy to be back, I'm feeling good."

Her ranking dropped to 170 during the injury break, but this run in China guarantees a significant rise, and on current form a return to the top 100 does not look far away.

Swiatek cruises through

Elsewhere in Wuhan, seventh seed Iga Swiatek made light work of her all-Polish meeting with Magdalena Frech, winning 6-2 6-1 to book her place in the third round.