Zeynep Sonmez wins in straight sets to enter the third round of a Grand Slam for the second time in six months.
Amid deafening cheers and a sea of red flags, Turkiye’s Zeynep Sonmez has entered the third round of the Australian Open by defeating Anna Bondar in straight sets in the first tennis Grand Slam of the year.
Playing at one of the smaller show courts at Melbourne Park, the world number 112 wrapped up the 6-2, 6-4 win in 90 minutes on Wednesday.
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Sonmez, who became the first Turkish player to enter the third round of a Grand Slam at Wimbledon last year, soaked in the applause of a partisan crowd that relentlessly chanted her name on court number 7.
The 23-year-old from Istanbul stunned 11th seed Ekaterina Alexandrova in her opening match to become the first woman from her country to reach the second round in Melbourne.
“I really appreciated there were many Turkish people, and I felt like I was at home,” she said after her flag-waving compatriots roared her to a dominant win over 74th-ranked Bondar.
“In the beginning, I was a bit nervous and then I think I got used to it.”
She added:. “I felt very good on the court. I really felt the support and I felt like we were all playing together, actually.”
Sonmez will face a tough challenge in the next round, where she faces Kazakhstan’s Yulia Putintseva, who is ranked 94th in the world.
But the Turkish crowd favourite can expect more support as she progresses further and admitted the support in Australia was better than anything she’d experienced before.
“At Wimbledon also, there were many people and my first round here, too, there were many people,” she said.
“But today was … I have never experienced something like this.”
The Turkish fans were so loud that she “couldn’t even hear my own thoughts”, said Sonmez, who captured the only WTA title of her career in Mexico in 2024.
Knowing her compatriots were watching in the early hours back home on television also spurred her on.
“I know they’re supporting me. I know they’re watching me. It was, like, 3am, and I know that there were many people who just woke up to watch me.”
Earlier on Sunday, Sonmez won hearts by rushing to the aid of a ball girl who had fainted in the punishing Melbourne heat.
