Sesil Karatantcheva

Sesil Karatantcheva (; born August 8, 1989) is a Bulgarian-born Kazakhstani tennis player. Karatantcheva played for Bulgaria until February 2, 2009, when she changed nationality. She will play for Kazakhstan until at least 2012.

Sesil career's highs included a quarterfinal at the 2005 French Open, and No.35 on WTA singles ranking on November 7, 2005. Karatantcheva was also known for testing positive on two drug tests for nandrolone; and after serving a two-year ban of playing professional tennis, she returned in 2008. As of June 6, 2011 she is ranked No. 159 on the WTA Tour.

Tennis career

2003

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.

2004

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 Magüi 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. On April 19, she...
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