Sesil Radoslavova Karatantcheva (; born 8 August 1989) is a Bulgarian former professional tennis player. On 7 November 2005, she reached her best singles ranking of world No. 35. On 19 April 2010, she peaked at No. 154 in the doubles rankings. In her career, she won nine singles titles on the ITF Women's Circuit.
Karatantcheva is perhaps best known for reaching the quarterfinals of the 2005 French Open, upsetting seven-time Grand Slam champion Venus Williams en route.
Tennis career She began playing tennis at the age of five. In 2001, 12-year-old Karatantcheva won the Orange Bowl tournament for her age group, defeating Alisa Kleybanova in the final. Early in her playing days, she trained for approximately six months at the famous IMG Academy of Nick Bollettieri.
2003–2004: Early career Karatantcheva played her first professional tournament in September 2003 in Sofia, Bulgaria at the age of 14. As an unranked qualifier the next week, she defeated the No. 1, 2, and 3 seeds en route to her first professional tournament title at a small ITF tournament in Volos, Greece. Karatantcheva went on to win two other ITF titles in 2003. In 2004, Karatantcheva began her season at the WTA tournament in Indian Wells, where she defeated Alexandra Stevenson in the first, and upset the 17th seed Magüi Serna in the second round. In an interview prior to her match against 16th seed Maria Sharapova, Karatantcheva claimed that Sharapova had skipped a hitting session with her a few weeks earlier in Florida, and began a war of words with the Russian.
Sharapova then defeated Karatantcheva in three sets in the third round. On April 19, she played her first match for the Bulgaria Fed Cup team. Because of her age, Karatantcheva was restricted in the number of tournaments she was able to play. In August, she reached the quarterfinals of a WTA tournament in Vancouver, British Columbia, and qualified for the US Open, before losing to eventual champion Svetlana Kuznetsova in the first round. Karatantcheva also reached the quarterfinals of the WTA tournament in Québec City, and captured another ITF tournament in December at Palm Beach Gardens. In 2004 she became the French Open junior champion without losing a set, defeating Romanian Mădălina Gojnea in the final.
2005: Breakthrough and first French Open quarterfinal The 2005 season was Karatantcheva's breakthrough season. She started off the year at the tournament in Gold Coast, Australia by qualifying, and then defeating the tournament's No. 7 seed Elena Likhovtseva before falling in the quarterfinals. At 15 years and 5 months, she qualified for the 2005 Australian Open, losing to the No. 4 seed Maria Sharapova in the first round.
Her most successful tournament to date was at the 2005 Roland Garros where Karatantcheva defeated the No. 19 seed Shinobu Asagoe in the second round, and then stunned the world with her victory over the No. 11 seed and former world number one Venus Williams in the third round. After defeating Emmanuelle Gagliardi, she fell to Likhovtseva in the quarterfinals. Karatantcheva became the youngest female to reach the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam tournament since Martina Hingis, who was 15 years and 4 months old in 1996 at the Australian Open. At Wimbledon, she lost to Sharapova once again, being able to win just one game. In 2005, Karatantcheva also won a European club championship in Rennes as a member of the Cherno More Elite team (Bulgarian: Черно море Елит). Her teammates were Virginiya Trifonova, Maria Penkova and Tsvetana Pironkova. At the end of the year, Karatantcheva came up eighth in the Bulgarian Sportsperson of the Year rankings, earning 676 points. She was also honoured by the Bulgarian Tennis Federation as the "Best female tennis player of the year".
On December 20, 2005, the French sports newspaper L'Équipe reported that Karatantcheva had failed a drug test earlier in the year at Roland Garros (after the 1/4 final match against Likhovtseva), and that she had appeared in front of a three-person panel of judges to explain the results. The newspaper claims that Karatantcheva said she was pregnant at the time of the test, which would explain the high levels of nandrolone in her system. Karatantcheva has denied all allegations, saying "I am shocked. I have not appeared before judges of the international federation."
2006–2007: Doping scandal and two-year suspension On 11 January 2006, the ITF issued a two-year ban after two positive drug tests for nandrolone. While Karatantcheva has claimed she was pregnant at the time of one of the tests, another laboratory carried out a pregnancy test on her urine sample, and it tested negative. On 3 July 2006, the Court of Arbitration for Sport denied her appeal to overturn the ban with the argument that said nandrolone was found in concentrations which were inconsistent with the normal levels for that stage of pregnancy.
Karatantcheva did not play any matches in 2006 or 2007 following her drug ban. She mainly trained in Pravets.
2008: Back to the WTA Tour
Karatantcheva's first match after the ban was in a pre-qualification tournament for a wildcard into the $25k tournament in Surprise, Arizona. She won three matches in one day to win the event and thus won a wildcard for the qualifying draw, in which she beat Susanna Lingman, Maria Kondratieva, and Kristína Kučová. In the main draw, Karatantcheva beat the fifth seed Sunitha Rao in three sets in the first round, and Robin Stephenson in the second round. In the quarterfinals, Karatantcheva beat Magdaléna Rybáriková in two sets, and in the semifinals she defeated the second seed Viktoriya Kutuzova. In the finals, Sesil played a tough three-set match and overcame the eighth seed American Angela Haynes.
In late January, still unranked, she entered another $25k tournament at La Quinta, and again battled through three rounds of qualifying into the main draw, despite a scare in her qualifying match against American player Stacia Fonseca, who took the first set. Having fended off a spirited challenge from second-seeded Angelika Bachmann in the first round of the main draw, she made light work of subsequent opponents en route to the semifinals, where for the second tournament in succession she was scheduled to play Viktoriya Kutuzova. This time, the match ran to three sets, but Karatantcheva ultimately prevailed in three sets. In the final, Karatantcheva defeated the third seed Sandra Klösel.
Karatantcheva attracted criticism from the Bulgarian tennis federation for competing at La Quinta in preference to participating in Bulgaria's Federation Cup tie scheduled the same week. She was accused of breach of contract and threatened with a fine, but the Bulgarian teenager stood by her decision, which she had taken on the grounds that it was proving extremely difficult for her to gain entry even to low-level tournaments following the loss of all her ranking points and any right to protected ranking status after her ban, so she needed to work at re-establishing herself at least in the mid-hundreds of the WTA rankings as a matter of priority before tending to national team commitments.
In February, the Bulgarian was awarded a wildcard into the $75k Midland Classic, but her winning streak came to an abrupt end as she was defeated in the first round by qualifier Valérie Tétreault of Canada, who had raced through the three qualifying rounds for the loss of just nine games, five of them against former top 50 star Mirjana Lučić. Karatantcheva then attempted to qualify for the WTA Tier III event in Memphis but lost in the first round of qualifying to Hana Šromová of the Czech Republic.
In early March, she qualified for the $50k Las Vegas event including victories over Amber Liu and Elena Bovina. However, she lost in the first round of the main draw to wildcarded American Madison Brengle. She also received a wildcard into the qualifying event for the Tier I event at Indian Wells but lost in the first round of qualifying to Evgeniya Rodina. Her luck changed however, when, at the end of March, she managed to qualify and reach the final of the $50k event in Latina, losing to Iveta Benešová in straight sets.
In April, she reached the quarterfinals of the $25k event at Civitavecchia, losing to Betina Jozami of Argentina in straight sets. Her route through to the final of the $25k event in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, included a victory over seventh-seeded Lauren Albanese. Argentinian Soledad Esperón beat her in two sets in the final.
In May, she played her first WTA main-draw match since her suspension in Fes, Morocco against Elena Baltacha which she won in straight sets. In June, Sesil reached the quarterfinals of the $75k tournament in Marseille. In the qualifications of Wimbledon, she lost in the second round to Magdaléna Rybáriková from Slovakia.
2009: Representing Kazakhstan On 10 January 2009, it was announced that Karatantcheva would take Kazakh citizenship and compete for the Kazakhstan Fed Cup team. She did not participate in Fed Cup competitions for Kazakhstan during 2009.
In tournament play in January, she reached the second round (as a qualifier) at the Brisbane International, defeating top 50 player Iveta Benešová along the way and then backed it up by playing (and winning) her first main-draw major match (again as a qualifier) at the Australian Open. She then lost in the second round to Peng Shuai. This was to be her last main tournament playing for Bulgaria until 2015.
2010: First WTA Tour semifinal At the Pattaya Open, Karatantcheva reached her first WTA semifinal, before losing to Tamarine Tanasugarn. Karatantcheva qualified for the Birmingham Classic where she reached the quarterfinals winning five matches in a row, upsetting Yaroslava Shvedova in straight sets in the second round, before losing to second seed Maria Sharapova.
2011 Karatantcheva failed to qualify in Brisbane, Melbourne, Pattaya, and Monterrey. She reached the final of a $25k event in Clearwater, Florida, losing to Ajla Tomljanović. At the French Open, she lost to Olga Govortsova in the final round of qualifying. After barely missing out on qualifying for the Birmingham Classic, Karatantcheva fell to Arina Rodionova in the first round of qualifying of Wimbledon. She took a two-week break following Wimbledon.
She returned at the Palermo Ladies Open, where she qualified for the main draw. She drew second seed Roberta Vinci in the first round. Although Karatantcheva played well she was beaten in straight sets. She then competed in two $100k events – in Bucharest and Astana, losing in the early round of both tournaments.
She then failed to qualify for the US Open, marking the first year since 2009 that she had not competed in the main draw of a major. Her poor form continued, losing in the first or second rounds of four more ITF tournaments.
She began to improve her game by advancing to the semifinals of a $50k event in Troy, Alabama. She then competed in a $25k tournament in Rock Hill, losing in the quarterfinals. Karatantcheva then played at the $50k event in Grapevine, Texas, where she advanced to the final, losing to eighth seed Kurumi Nara in three sets. Following her performance in Grapevine, Sesil achieved her best result of the year by winning a $75k tournament, the Goldwater Women's Tennis Classic, in Phoenix, Arizona, the biggest title of her career. She won the title dropping only two sets the entire tournament, defeating a seeded player along the way. Karatantcheva's recent change in form has propelled her well back inside the top 200 and she established herself as one of the leading Kazakh players.
2012