British star Sonay Kartal’s latest tattoo reflects her memorable run at Wimbledon this month. The 23-year-old went further than any other home female player at SW19, making it through to the last-16.
Her run to the fourth round included shocking the 20th seed Jeļena Ostapenko in straight sets. She was eventually beaten by Russian star Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 7-6 6-4 on her Centre Court debut under the roof. The weather was treacherous and thunderstorms ricocheted around the area.
The 23-year-old has now commemorated the occasion with a specially designed tattoo of a cloud and a lightning bolt.
The official Wimbledon Instagram account shared an image of the design, with the text “Sonay’s thunderous centre court debut sealed with ink,” inserted in the picture. They added the caption “Sealed with ink” with a writing emoji.
The post proved popular with tennis fans. The work appeared to have been done by Top Boy Tattoo, a company based in Kartal’s home town of Brighton. Employee @mo_tatts replied with “was a pleasure to do this for her.”
Kartal, who has now reached a career-high ranking of world No.44, has been open about her love of tattoos. Among them is ‘329’, her number representing Great Britain when she made her Billie Jean King Cup debut in April.
She also has the year ‘2022’ to mark the season in which she first made the main draw in all four Grand Slam events. A symbol meaning ‘bravery’ outlines a point in her career when she decided to make major alterations to her game.
However, not all of the ink is tennis-related. She claims her favourite tattoo is a tribute to her first dog, a golden retriever named Chester.