British No. 2 Sonay Kartal caused a huge upset in Indian Wells on Saturday, saving a match point to take out No. 20 seed Emma Navarro 6-1 3-6 7-6(2) in a gruelling, two-hour and 32-minute match. Kartal is no stranger to the Californian desert – 12 months ago, she reached the fourth round as a lucky loser, shocking the 16th seed. Now in the main draw off of her own ranking, the 24-year-old is back to her old tricks.

The Brighton-based star thrives in the tricky, often windy conditions in Indian Wells, and after her opening match, said they reminded her of home. And she looked better than ever as she raced into a 5-0 lead over Navarro in less than 20 minutes, and took the first set in under half an hour.

There were four successive breaks early in the second set, but Navarro eventually managed to stop that run and held to lead 4-3. Kartal then called the physio and had a medical timeout as the trainer worked on her leg, hip and lower back. It didn’t help, and Navarro went on to force a decider, winning four straight games to take the second set 6-3.

The world No. 54, who is defending 140 ranking points here this fortnight, called the physio again ahead of the third set. She came through an 11-minute game to start the decider, and the trainer returned to the court briefly during the changeover with Kartal leading 2-1. The Brit finally started to settle back into the match and looked strong as the third set went on.

Navarro got out of a tight game to level the score at 4-4 and was the first to break in the tight decider, giving herself the chance to serve for the match. But the 20th seed couldn’t do it, and Kartal broke to give herself a lifeline, taking it to 5-5. The rollercoaster continued – Navarro broke in a lengthy game to serve for the match again and even had a match point this time, but again, the British No. 2 broke back, this time forcing a deciding tiebreak.

After losing the first point on her serve in the breaker, Kartal reeled off five in a row. After saving a match point only a few minutes earlier, the world No. 54 suddenly had four of her own. And she only needed the one, as Navarro sent the ball wide to bow out of the tournament.

Addressing her statement win, and the injury scare, Kartal told Sky Sports: “Little nuggles here and there. Just super proud of how I fought through that. It was easy to kind of throw in the towel in that point and let Emma have the match, but no, I think it’s matches like that that make you super proud of yourself.

“I think I just landed a bit funny on the serve and had a bit of a twinge in the back. I think, with that, it made me lose a lot of power. Kind of struggling to generate anything off my shots. Just had to dig deep and just do what I could. It’s tough playing an American out here, I’ll tell you that! Listen, it’s matches like that where you’ve got to keep yourself to yourself and not focus on the external noise and put your head down and just work for every point.”

Kartal wasn’t the only Brit who won on Saturday, as defending men’s singles champion Jack Draper survived an early wobble to reach the third round. The British No. 1 lifted the biggest title of his career in the Californian desert in 2025, taking out the likes of Carlos Alcaraz, Taylor Fritz and Holger Rune en route. But an arm injury wrecked his season, and he shut it down after pulling out of the US Open.

Playing just his third tournament at any level since August, Draper beat former top-10er Roberto Bautista Agut 3-6 6-3 6-2. As the No. 14 seed, Draper got a bye into the second round but looked a step slower than his experienced Spanish opponent in set one. He quickly turned things around in the second, breaking to love early on, hitting four winners in a row. And he never looked back, growing into the match and ending it with 33 winners.

The reigning champion then told Sky Sports that he was still finding his feet on the match court following an eight-month injury layoff. “These wins are massive for me, especially on my return to the tour. The injury I had, it wasn’t like a couple of weeks, it was eight months,” he said.

“So I missed so much competitive tennis, and I do feel that, you know, I feel a little bit off. In practice, my level is good, but when it comes to the match court, I’m definitely a bit in and out with my consistency. But I think that’s going to come, the more I play, the more I get myself out in front of these top players.”