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Sesil Karatantcheva (born August 8, 1989) is a
Bulgaria|Bulgarian professional female tennis
player. She was born in Sofia, the capital of
Bulgaria.

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.

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 Magui 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.  Because of her age,
Karatantcheva was restriced in the number of
tournaments she was able to play.  In August, she
reached the quarterfinals of a WTA tournament in
Vancouver, British Columbia, and qualified for the
US Open, before losing to eventual champion
Svetlana Kuznetsova in the first round. 
Karatantcheva also reached the quarterfinals of a
WTA tournament in Quebec City, and captured
another ITF tournament in December at Palm Beach
Gardens.

2005 has been Karatantcheva's breakthrough year. 
She started off the year at a tournament in Gold
Coast, Australia by qualifying, and then defeating
the tournament's #1 seed Elena Likhovtseva before
falling in the quarterfinals.  She then qualified
for the Australian Open, before losing to the #4
seed Sharapova in the first round.  Her most
successful tournament to date was at Roland
Garros.  Karatantcheva defeated the #19 seed
Shinobu Asagoe in the second round, and then
stunned the world with her victory over the #11
seed and former world number one Venus Williams in
the third round.  After defeating Emanuelle
Gagliardi in the fourth round, she fell to
Likhovtseva in the quarterfinals.  Karatantcheva
became the youngest female to reach the
quarterfinals of a Grand Slam tournament since
Martina Hingis in 1996.

===Performance timeline===
{| bgcolor="#f7f8ff" cellpadding="3"
cellspacing="0" border="1" style="font-size: 95%;
border: gray solid 1px; border-collapse:
collapse;"
|- bgcolor="#efefef"
! Tournament !! 2005 !! 2004 !! W-L
|-
|Australian Open
|align="center"|1r
|align="center"|-
|align="center"|0-1

|-
|Roland Garros
|align="center"|QF
|align="center"|-
|align="center"|4-1

|-
|Wimbledon Championships|Wimbledon
|align="center"|2r
|align="center"|-
|align="center"|1-1

|-
|US Open
|align="center"|2r
|align="center"|1r
|align="center"|1-2

|-
|WTA Tour Championships
|align="center"|
|align="center"|-
|align="center"|0-0
|}

==External links==
*wta|id=311810|name=Sesil Karatantcheva
*http://www.karatantcheva.com Sesil Karatantcheva
Site