Going into the 2025 Wimbledon Championships, Emma Raducanu entered the tournament with high hopes as the top-ranked player from her country. Additionally, with crowd support, the British star was expected to dig deep in the tournament. Although she gave a good account of herself in the opening two rounds, Raducanu lost steam against the World Number 1 Aryna Sabalenka, as she lost in straight sets to bow out of the tournament. While it was certainly a big blow to her, Raducanu might face further trouble owing to her early exit from the tournament.

Before the Wimbledon Championships, Raducanu was placed in the 40th spot in the WTA rankings. She was the top-ranked player from her country, ahead of the likes of Katie Boulter and Sonay Kartal, who were placed in the 43rd and 51st spots, respectively. No other British player was ranked inside the top 100 as Raducanu’s No. 1 British spot is under threat.

Although Boulter lost in the second round and is out of the Wimbledon Championships, Sonay Kartal’s challenge is still alive in the tournament. She is into the pre-quarterfinals and will face Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the last 16. If Kartal manages to win that encounter tomorrow, she would topple Emma Raducanu as the top-ranked British player and move ahead in the WTA rankings. This comes as a major blow to Raducanu at a time when she was gaining some momentum of late.

Meanwhile, this is Kartal’s best performance at Wimbledon and she isn’t done yet. She wants to keep the momentum going and hopes to rise in the WTA rankings. After her win over Dianne Parry on Court 1 yesterday, she revealed, “I was pretty nervous. It’s a big court with a match that has a lot of meaning to me. Obviously last year, that was also in the back of my mind, losing to Coco [Gauff] on the same court in the same round. I tried to take everything I learned from that match and put it into play on the court. I tried to relax as best as I could. Losing 4-1, I just tried to get back on the scoreboard one by one.”

On the other hand, there were contrasting emotions in Raducanu’s camp after her loss earlier today. Raducanu opened up about what went wrong in her defeat to Sabalenka.

Emma Raducanu calls out technology after her Wimbledon loss

This year, Wimbledon replaced line judges with an electronic line-calling system found in various tournaments. This was introduced to minimize human errors and remove any biases. However, Raducanu had a contrasting experience, as she felt that many calls went against her. As a result, she expressed her frustration in this regard.

Emma Raducanu said, “It’s kind of disappointing, the tournament here, that the calls can be so wrong, but for the most part, they’ve been OK. It’s just, like, I’ve had a few in my other matches, too, that have been very wrong. So yeah, I don’t know. Hopefully, they can fix that. I don’t think I’ve really had a loss like this in a long time, where I feel like I maybe had chances and didn’t take them. I think usually I’m pretty good at converting.” 

Meanwhile, Kartal would be raring to go and carry on her country’s hopes in the tournament. Kartal’s match against Pavlyuchenkova is scheduled for tomorrow on the Centre Court and the encounter can be followed on EssentiallySports’ Live Blog.