<p>OSPREY — The tennis ball had barely landed wide to wrap up Sesil Karatantcheva's win Thursday when the three young girls suddenly stood in unison at courtside to applaud their big sister's victory over Jessica Pegula here at The Oaks Club.</p><p>Karatantcheva came off the court and tweaked the nose of 11-year old Gabby, the name Sesil chose for her in honor of former tennis star Gabriela Sabatini. She gave quick hugs to 8-year old Elia and 4-year old Alexa.</p><p>"I think this is the first tournament they have been able to see me play in like half a year. It is nice to have family with you," Karatancheva said.</p><p>Later the entire family, including father, Rado, stepmother, Zhivna, and the three sisters sat with Sesil in the shade of a tree to talk tennis, possibly recounting the part-time Bradenton resident's trip to the quarterfinals of The 2012 Oaks Club $50,000 Pro Circuit Event.</p><p>It is one more step in the career of a player who is not yet 23 years old but seems to have lived a lifetime of experiences since bursting on to the tennis scene at the age of 14.</p><p>"I do feel like I have been around forever," Karatantcheva said with a sigh shortly after putting the finishing touches on a 6-3, 4-6, 6-1 win over Pegula to keep the family satisfied.</p><p>It does seem so long ago that a then 14-year-old Karatantcheva announced she was going to beat Maria Sharapova. That remark came before a match at Indian Wells, Calif., and was reportedly precipitated by her perception that Sharapova had skipped out of a practice match with her at the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy, where the pair trained.</p><p>"That is going to follow me until the day I die," Karatantcheva said with a laugh Thursday. "People say 'agents told her to say it.' No. I was just 14 and couldn't keep my mouth shut. It was the first thing that came to my mind, and I just blew it out in the open.</p><p>"That is something only a 14-year old can imagine to do."</p><p>Not many imagined that a year later Karatantcheva, who grew up in Bulgaria, would beat Venus Williams at the 2005 French Open on her way to becoming the youngest female to reach the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam tournament since Martina Hingis in 1996.</p><p>Fewer still would have predicted that less than a year later, Karatantcheva would be serving a two-year ban for a failed drug test that had indicated unacceptable levels of the banned nandrolone in her system.</p><p>Though there were claims that she was pregnant at the time of the test, Karatantcheva quietly served the punishment and has been working hard to return to the upper levels of the pro tour.</p><p>"Obviously I got older, more mature, and my game improved," she said. "But, at the same time, the game did not sleep those two years that I was off.</p><p>"Everyone got stronger, more motivated. I think I got better, but the game did too."</p><p>This week, Karatantcheva, who came into the tournament as the lowest ranked player (No. 133) to make the main draw as a direct acceptance, opened her run with a 6-1, 6-3 upset win over second-seeded Anastasia Yakimova. She continued the run with Thursday's win over Pegula, the daughter of Terrence Pegula, the owner of the Buffalo Sabres NHL franchise.</p><p>Karatantcheva won the first set and took an early lead in the second set before Pegula made things interesting by winning five straight games to take a 5-2 lead, then holding on to force the third set.</p><p>"I don't think my game dropped so much as I think she got focused and started to play better," Karatantcheva said.</p><p>But Karatantcheva has been around too long to worry about needing another set to win the match and she quickly ran to a 5-0 lead to take control and earn the right to play France's Alize Cornet today.</p><p>"I knew that she was young and probably wouldn't be able to keep it up the whole time," Karatantcheva reasoned. "That comes with experience. I am older and I know how to stay focused a little longer."</p><p>Karatantcheva is not exactly thrilled with the level of her game right now, using a word she had reserved for what she was going to do to Sharapova way back when to describe her serve, forehand and volley. But she used her legs and her backhand to stick around for at least another day.</p><p>Cornet advanced to today's match with Karatantcheva with a 6-2, 6-3 win over Anastasia Rodionova, the No. 8 seed. </p><p>In the only other upset of the day, Arantxa Rus of The Netherlands beat sixth-seeded Irina Falconi, the top American player in the draw, 4-6, 6-1, 6-4. </p><p>Coco Vandeweghe's run ended with a 6-3, 6-1 loss to third-seeded Alexandra Panova of Russia.</p>
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