Emerging Turkish tennis talent Zeynep Sönmez said she had never known an atmosphere like it as she extended her trailblazing Australian Open run Wednesday in front of an electric crowd.
The 112th-ranked qualifier dispatched Anna Bondar of Hungary 6-2, 6-4, and faces Kazakhstan’s Yulia Putintseva in the third round.
The 23-year-old from İstanbul stunned 11th seed Ekaterina Alexandrova in her opening match to become the first woman from Turkey to reach the second round in Melbourne.
“I really appreciated that there were a lot of Turks, 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.”
Sönmez made history at Wimbledon last year and put Turkish tennis on the map by becoming the first Turk to reach the third round of a Grand Slam in the Open era.
She enjoyed tremendous support on that occasion as well but said it was even better this time.
“At Wimbledon also there were many people, and in my first round here, too, there were many people,” she said.
“But today was … I have never experienced something like this.”
Sönmez said the Turkish fans were so loud that “I couldn’t even hear my own thoughts.”
She had 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, 3:00 a.m., and I know that there were many people who got up just to watch me.”
© Agence France-Presse