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SESIL KARATANTCHEVA
BULGARIAN TENNIS PLAYER WEB SITE
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'Special K' seeks the fast track to the top
By Andrew Baker
Last Updated: 1:44am BST 20/06/2005
Tradition demands that at Wimbledon there emerges a cadre of blonde teenage females of eastern European descent, great talent and fearsome unpronounceability. Last year was Maria Sharapova's opportunity to shock and delight in equal measure. This year it may be the turn of the girl that tennis fans are already calling Special K.
The nickname is certainly a help, as it indentifies 15-year-old Sesil Karatancheva as a feisty character, and does away with the need to battle with her surname.
What's so special? The Bulgarian reached the quarter-finals at the French Open on her debut, defeating Venus Williams and three other vastly more experienced players en route, before giving Russia's Elena Likhovtseva an almighty fright while having one foot in the semis.
Furthermore, Karatancheva is inclined to speak her mind, in English acquired from listening to Spice Girls tracks, which makes a refreshing change when players - particularly young players - tend to talk in the manner of American shopping-mall announcers.
She was born in Sofia, but her game was raised in the United States, as yet another product of Nick Bollettieri's academy in Florida. That only came about as a result of Special K's irrepressibility. She was playing in an Under-14s tournament when she saw the celebrated coach striding around and buttonholed him.
"Excuse me," she said. "Hi, I'm Sesil and can you come and watch me play?"
"No, I'm busy," Bollettieri replied.
"Please, come and watch me," Karatancheva pleaded, adding the clincher: "I'm good."
Bollettieri sent a lieutenant along; the Bulgarian was indeed good, and by the end of the day she had her scholarship. "I was so young and devilish at the time," she said. "I mean, you really could not say no to me."
Are you getting the mood? Karatancheva has adopted the Spice Girls' mantra, "Tell me what you want, what you really really really want", and her answer is: "I want the lot, and as soon as possible".
Karatancheva has the blonde good looks that will inevitably invite comparison with the erstwhile teenage Special K - Anna Kournikova - but there is clearly a competitive urge within her which the Russian perhaps lacked.
This is directed, in particular, at the most notable recent, teenage, blonde, Bolletieri product: Maria Sharapova. Karatancheva is already notorious for the remark she made last year before a match against the glamorous Russian, when she pledged to "kick her butt". It seems that there had been a minor altercation during training, and Karatancheva has since put the spat down to youthful high spirits. But this could be a rivalry which will run and run. Should she defeat Britain's Amanda Janes in the first round she is then likely to meet Sharapova.
A typical Bollettieri graduate, Karatancheva is strong on both flanks and has a serve of surprising power given her slight frame. She is quick, and while her results suggest that she may be best suited to clay, as her physique develops she is likely to become a force to be reckoned with at Wimbledon.
For one so forthright in interview mode, and so apparently confident on court, if Karatancheva lacks a quality at the moment it is self-belief. She had a place in the semi-finals all but in her grasp at Roland Garros, leading by a set, 4-3 and 30-0 but then...
"I don't really think I believe in myself," she said afterwards, with trade-mark honesty. "I think things just happened too fast for me. I don't think I'm really prepared for this. So I just, I think, need more time."
What refreshing candour. Karatancheva has worked out that at this stage in her fledgling career, her talent is in advance of her mental ability to cope with it, so she finds herself in match-winning positions against players she does not believe she can beat.
Against Williams, the American was playing so badly that Karatancheva had no time for nerves and was presented with the match. But in the quarter-final, Likhovtseva - previously beaten by the teenager this year - could see the moment when the confidence wavered, and seized her chance.
"I was kind of feeling like I was 10-years-old again," Karatancheva admitted. "I was happy, then I was sad again. Then I was happy, then I was sad. It was a lot of emotions and that's not really good if you want to be up there as a professional. I need more experience, so I'm just going to keep playing."
Since Paris, Karatancheva has given herself a break from tournament tennis, playing instead with friends at a club in Germany. She will miss out on acclimatising to grass, but on the other hand she will be out of the limelight and under no pressure. She could have got a wild card into Edgbaston on the strength of her performances in Paris, but this is the way she prefers to prepare for her first visit to the most famous tournament in the world.
"It's not that I don't want to play," she said at the time. "I do, but I really need a break right now. I'm just going to be there and just be Sesil."
Coming soon to a court near you, with the makings (I apologise) of a serial winner: Special K.
Telegraph
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