Sesil Karatantcheva

Sesil Karatantcheva (born August 8, 1989) is a Bulgarian professional female tennis player. She was born in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria.

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 #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 a large WTA tournament Indian Wells, California, where she defeated American Alexandra Stevenson in the first round, and upset the 17th seed Magui 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. Because of her age, Karatantcheva was restriced 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 a WTA tournament in Quebec City, and captured another ITF tournament in December at Palm Beach Gardens.

2005 has been Karatantcheva's breakthrough year. She started off the year at a tournament in Gold Coast, Australia by qualifying, and then defeating the tournament's #1 seed Elena Likhovtseva before falling in the quarterfinals. She then qualified for the Australian Open, before losing to the #4 seed Sharapova in the first round. Her most successful tournament to date was at Roland Garros. Karatantcheva defeated the #19 seed Shinobu Asagoe in the second round, and then stunned the world with her victory over the #11 seed and former world number one Venus Williams in the third round. After defeating Emanuelle Gagliardi in the fourth round, she fell to Likhovtseva in the quarterfinals. Karatantcheva became the youngest female to reach the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam tournament since Martina Hingis in 1996.

On December 20, 2005, the French sports newspaper L'Equipe reported that Karatantcheva had failed a drug test earlier in the year at Roland Garros, 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 nandrolon in her system. Karatantcheva has denied all allegations, saying "I am shocked. I have not appeared before judges of the international federation."

On January 11, 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.

Performance timeline

Tournament	2005	2004	W-L
Australian Open	1r	-	0-1
Roland Garros	QF	-	4-1
Wimbledon	2r	-	1-1
US Open	2r	1r	1-2
WTA Tour Championships	-	-	0-0

Tennis highs

• Career-high singles ranking in the WTA rankings - 38
• Career-high doubles ranking in the WTA rankings - 892

(As of October 10, 2005)

External links

• Sesil Karatantcheva at the Women's Tennis Association
• Sesil Karatantcheva Site