Alina Charaeva vs Sonay Kartal Prediction China Open - Beijing · Oct 5, 2026

Analysis

Alina Charaeva arrives on a genuinely eye-catching run: she got past Yuliia Starodubtseva twice (2-1 and 2-1), then beat Elena Rybakina 2-1 on 3 October, and she had already seen off Sofia Kenin 2-1 in late September, her only recent setback being a 1-2 loss to Anna Bondar. The catch is that almost every one of those wins was a full three-setter, so she has banked a heavy workload in a short space of time. Sonay Kartal, by contrast, has barely been tested here, cruising past Xinyu Wang 2-0 and Andrea Lazaro Garcia 2-0 without dropping a set. Her flat, low-trajectory baseline game and clean return of serve suit Beijing's medium-paced outdoor hard courts, and the energy saved could matter in a third-round match against an opponent who thrives on long rallies. Charaeva's form and willingness to grind make this close rather than one-sided, and she has already shown she can hurt a big name. The small edge goes to Kartal on freshness and consistency of level, with a decider very much live.