By Shrivathsa Sridhar<\/p>\n
MELBOURNE, Jan 21 (Reuters) \u2013 Anyone strolling past Melbourne Park\u2019s outer courts might have felt like they were wandering through Istanbul on Wednesday as the roars behind Turkish trailblazer Zeynep Sonmez reached deafening levels \u200dat the Australian Open.<\/p>\n
A popular draw among Turkish fans and now a crowd favourite in Melbourne after assisting an ill ball girl during her opener, Sonmez fed off the energy on court seven to beat Hungarian Anna Bondar 6-2 6-4 and progress.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt like I was at home,\u201d Sonmez told reporters after matching her best Grand Slam run of reaching \u200cthe third round at Wimbledon last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was feeling the \u200cenergy. It was unreal. I appreciate it. I felt very good on the court. I felt the support, and I felt like we were all playing together, actually.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Wimbledon when I was playing third round, it was similar to this, but today \u2026 I \u200bfelt like I never experienced something like this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sonmez is part of a growing group of players from nations without traditional tennis pathways who are lighting up \u200dthe sport\u2019s biggest stages.<\/p>\n
Filipina Alexandra Eala was watched \u200bby heaving crowds outside practice courts in the build-up to the \u200bGrand Slam while Janice Tjen has won new fans by becoming the first Indonesian \u200dto win a match at the Australian Open in 28 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s good \u2026 there are some countries that are very good at tennis. You know, they\u2019re like tennis countries. We aren\u2019t one of them,\u201d Sonmez said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a good thing, because there are more players and more surprises. I saw Alex playing few \u200ddays ago. The crowd was crazy. I really enjoy watching those matches.\u201d<\/p>\n
Like the biggest players from the strongest nations, Sonmez also dreams of someday winning a Grand Slam.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I\u2019m \u200dnot focusing specifically on \u200dthat dream,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just focusing on getting better every \u200bday. I want to enjoy being on the court, because \u200bI \u2060know that I feel and I play better when I \u200cenjoy being on the court.\u201d<\/p>\n
Having come through three qualifying rounds before stunning 11th seed Ekaterina Alexandrova and taking out Bondar, the 112th ranked Sonmez will look to keep her run going when she meets Kazakh Yulia Putintseva in the third round.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now I\u2019m tired, because I just finished,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I\u2019m not tired overall.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Shrivathsa Sridhar in Melbourne; \u2060Editing by Peter Rutherford)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Shrivathsa Sridhar MELBOURNE, Jan 21 (Reuters) \u2013 Anyone strolling past Melbourne Park\u2019s outer courts might have felt…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-423457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}