Katie Boulter survives Sonay Kartal scare to keep Nottingham Open hopes alive
Boulter, who was replaced this week as British number one by Emma Raducanu, won her maiden WTA Tour title in Nottingham two years ago and backed it up last summer.
And she extended her winning run in the city to 12 matches with a 6-4 1-6 7-5 victory over British number three Kartal.
Boulter trailed 4-2 in the deciding set and had to save a break point to avoid going a double break behind, with the eighth seed struggling in the heat and consulting the doctor.
But she rallied impressively to make it through to a quarter-final against American McCartney Kessler.
'I have so much respect for Sonay, she is such a tough competitor and I also know she's never going to give me anything at any point,' said Boulter on the BBC.
'I know she's going to surpass me at some point, she's got the game for it, she's got the head for it. I'm going to have to face that fact.
'But at the very end I just wanted to grit my teeth as hard as I possibly could and get myself over the line. I'm really pleased with myself today. It wasn't easy, for sure.
🤯 @katiecboulter wins a rollercoaster match over Sonay Kartal to make the Lexus Nottingham Open quarter-finals! #BackTheBrits 🇬🇧 | @WTA pic.twitter.com/zfGIz7gIgL
— LTA (@the_LTA) June 19, 2025
'I feel like I step into my house when I come onto this court. I have such great vibes here but the heat was killing me today.
'I am definitely proper British because I can't handle the heat at all. I'm just glad I got over the line.'
Boulter looked very comfortable on serve all through the opening set but Kartal took control at the start of the second set, winning five games in a row.
The 23-year-old appeared to be heading for victory midway through the decider, with Boulter looking spent, but she roused herself and put aside the disappointment of missing two match points at 5-4, clinching victory two games later.
Boulter is the only British player left in the draw after teenager Mimi Xu lost 7-5 6-1 to sixth seed Magda Linette.
The 17-year-old, who will make her Wimbledon debut later this month after being given a wild card, won her first WTA Tour match in the first round before sitting an A level biology exam on Wednesday.
She pushed Linette, ranked 31st in the world, very hard in the opening set but the Pole used her experience to come through a series of close games in the second.
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But even at the small number of schools that provide little or no institutional support for athletics, disharmony can increase across campus if athletic departments are insulated from university budget cuts. Take Nebraska, for example. Is athletics 'sharing the pain?' The University of Nebraska Board of Regents on June 19 approved a 5% tuition increase amid financial challenges that included less state funding than they asked for and an estimated federal funding reduction of nearly $12 million. The new budget included $18 million in cuts and no funding for pay increases for university staff. But over in the athletic department, football coach Matt Rhule is set to get a $1 million pay increase this year, then another $1 million more in 2026, according to the terms of his contract. Athletic director Troy Dannen is set for a $100,000 annual raise. The athletic department didn't respond to an inquiry about it. "There is a feeling that the athletic department should be sharing the pain," said Jordan Gonzales, president of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Staff Senate. Nebraska is one of the relatively few schools in the nation that reported receiving no university support for athletics in fiscal 2023. Even so, any immunity from university austerity measures adds to the perception that athletic departments are becoming increasingly detached from their universities as they move to become more like professional sports. "When the university asks its core academic support staff to tighten their belts and absorb budget cuts while the athletic department appears to operate under a separate set of financial rules, it fosters a sense of two separate universities - one that's facing austerity and another that is investing in and entering into multimillion deals and contracts," Gonzales said. 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In the meantime, the pressure mounts for Division I athletic departments to spend money on players, all the way up to the initial cap of $20.5 million. Not doing so would mean falling behind the competition. "They need more money right now," said James Nussbaum, a former Northwestern football player and in-house counsel at Indiana University now at the firm Church Church Hittle + Antrim. "It's those schools in the middle that are going to be really interesting to watch as they try to figure out if they want to continue to fund athletics at the level they have been as it becomes more and more clear that they're not going to be able to compete with those top-tier schools, just from a resource standpoint." Where will the money come from? Some athletic departments are getting students to help pay the bills. Some are getting more from their universities. Some might pursue other sources: ? The Board of Governors for the State University System of Florida on June 18 granted permission for state universities to give a $22.5 million annual lifeline to athletics through at least June 2028. ? At the University of Michigan, athletic director Warde Manuel sent a letter to supporters after the House settlement was approved, saying his department faced a projected deficit of $27 million for the 2025-26 academic year, including $20.5 million for paying players. The letter asked for support and mentioned a planned 10% reduction in staff, in addition to other cost-cutting moves. Spokesman Dave Ablauf said the university also has offered the department a loan of up to $15 million. ? Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry recently signed a bill to increase taxes on sports gambling, helping raise more than $20 million to be divided among 11 state universities for athletics, including LSU. Incidentally, LSU athletics is not subject to university cutbacks there because it is considered "auxiliary" to the university, according to the Louisiana Illuminator in April. LSU didn't respond to a follow-up question about that from USA TODAY Sports. ? At the University of Colorado Boulder, the school approved an increase of the student athletic fee from $28.50 to $90 per semester, the first change to this fee since 1994. Funding from it was to support women's sports scholarships and non-revenue sports. ? At Virginia Tech, student athletic fees are set to go up by $295 annually, up to $732. ? At Wichita State, the university proposed a 3.5% tuition increase, citing the challenging financial landscape for higher education, as well as the House settlement. ? At the University of Kansas, Chancellor Douglas Girod told the Lawrence Journal-World that KU athletics possibly could pay the university a reduced tuition rate for its athletes. ? Private investment in athletics is on the way. Elevate, a sports strategy and marketing company, recently announced the launch of the Collegiate Investment Initiative to provide colleges with "capital and strategic resources to develop revenue-generating projects." What those schools must provide in return for that is not yet clear. Johnston of NACUBO said "everything is going to be affected" by federal funding cuts at the top, in addition to the big new cost for athletic departments. New sources of funding are needed in the absence of cutbacks. "It's not gonna go back to normal," Johnston said. "I think we' re in an inflection point." Contributing: Steve Berkowitz Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. Email: bschrotenb@
