Partnered first with Rudy Heryanto and later with singles star Liem Swie King, Kartono was one of the world's leading doubles players in the early and mid-1980s.

As upstarts, he and Heryanto took silver medals at the 1980 IBF World Championships in Jakarta, losing the final to veteran fellow countrymen Ade Chandra and Christian Hadinata.

Kartono and King earned bronze medals together at the 1985 IBF World Championships in Calgary, losing a close semifinal to the eventual champions Park Joo-bong and Kim Moon-soo.

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.