The 22-year-old battled through three rounds of qualifying and took down Suzan Lamens, Sijia Wei and Erika Andreeva en route to clinching her maiden WTA Tour win in SW19.

Kartal, who is supported by our Pro Scholarship Programme presented by Lexus, was forced to the sidelines for a few months at the beginning of the year due to health concerns. However, the Brighton-born star returned to the grass with a bang as she grasped her biggest career win by ranking against the world No.32 to set up a second round clash against France's Clara Burel.

“I'm super stoked with that one” Kartal said, speaking on her first Grand Slam win. “I think the last two years, having fallen short, I felt good this year coming through qualifying.

“It really helped with my performance, it gave me extra confidence having played the matches not that long ago at all. I think the first set I started with quite a few nerves. It's always tough going through first match.

“Third set, I was cruising, I felt like I was just playing at home and everything was just working just as it was on the practice court.”

The Briton was broken on her first service game of the match, as the Romanian sprinted ahead to a one set lead.

However, Kartal soon found her rhythm as she tightened up – winning 79% of points behind her first serve and looked to play on the front foot as she struck 23 winners past her opponent in the second and third sets.

The Brit saw an opening at 4-2 up – drawing out five break point opportunities which she soon capitalised on before seeing levelling the scoreboard with a second break of serve.

Into the deciding set and Kartal was spurred on by a packed home crowd on Court 15. With her racket swinging freely and her foot on the gas pedal, the world No.298 reeled off six consecutive games to close out the biggest win of her career in an hour and 52 minutes. 

Meanwhile, Lily Miyazaki also joined Kartal as another player who clocked a first main draw win at Wimbledon today. The 28-year-old pulled off a comprehensive 6-2, 6-1 victory over Tamara Korpatsch during her opener - her second Grand Slam win after she beat Margarita Betova in first round of last year’s US Open.

Despite the German resting 75 places above the Brit in the WTA rankings, Miyazaki dropped just seven points on her serve throughout the match to speed to victory in under an hour.

“I am really pleased with my performance,” Miyazaki said. “It was nice to get my first main draw win at Wimbledon.

“I haven’t played at main draw Grand Slams that often, this is only my third time. It is one of my better wins of my career, she is a top 100 player, so I am pleased with it.

“I really played my game pretty well. I like to play quite an aggressive game, not that I have a massive serve, but I like to take the ball early and put pressure on my opponents. I was able to do that, I just really concentrated on myself and I think that was what helped me.”

Miyazaki will now go on to play 14 seed and freshly crowned Rothesay International Eastbourne champion Daria Kasatkina in a tough second round battle.