Kartono tasted both the bitter and the sweet in contests for badminton's highly coveted Thomas Cup (men's world team championship). In 1982 he and Heryanto, after beating one Chinese team, lost the match that gave China its first Thomas Cup title. In the following 1984 Thomas Cup series, however, he teamed with Liem Swie King to take the crucial rubber match from China in a three matches to two Indonesian victory.