On the eve of the French Open in May, Donna Vekic had had enough. Her results hadn’t been great but it was more than that. Her energy and motivation had gone.
She told her coach, Nick Horvat, that she wanted to pull out of Roland Garros and that, at 27, she was thinking of quitting tennis altogether. She had thought about retiring two years earlier, following knee surgery, and she was back in that head space again.
The Croatian decided to have at least one more swing. She played that French Open, only to suffer a defeat to Olga Danilovic of Serbia in the third round that she described as “so, so painful”. After winning the opening set 6-0 and losing the second 5-7, Vekic squandered numerous break points in the third, and was broken when serving for the match on two consecutive occasions.
She then relinquished a 6-2 lead in the 10-point match tiebreak, losing 10-8. One set up against a player who had finished late the previous night, she again snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
Two months on, Vekic, who has a phenomenally powerful serve and forehand, has upended that narrative. Back at the same venue for the 2024 Paris Olympics and ranked world No 21 (up from 40 before Roland Garros), she is into the semifinals and on the brink of a medal. This would be the biggest achievement of her career — her four titles have all been at the 250 level, the lowest rung of the WTA Tour.
During this run in Paris, Vekic has taken out the Team USA flagbearer Coco Gauff, keeping her cool after the world No 2 had a lengthy exchange with the chair umpire and tournament supervisor over a disputed call. Vekic backed that up on Wednesday night against Ukraine’s Marta Kostyuk, winning a typically up-and-down thriller 6-4, 2-6, 7-6(8) to ensure she will play in a medal match.
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This Olympic run also comes on the back of her best result at a Grand Slam. She reached the Wimbledon semifinals a few weeks ago — getting two points away from the final — at her 43rd major. Only four players had ever reached their first semifinal after more attempts.
Vekic’s Wimbledon run took her within two points of the final (Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)
As ever with Vekic, who turned 28 in June, mindset is crucial. After beating Lulu Sun in their Wimbledon quarterfinal, 22-time Grand Slam doubles champion Pam Shriver offered a window into Vekic’s achievements. Shriver, who is on her coaching team, explained that the ability to “reset” after a tough moment has been one of the key mantras for Vekic during this period of success.
It’s not been straightforward — so outwardly emotional, her matches are rarely stress-free — but this is how Vekic defied the doubts to become a Wimbledon and Olympic semifinalist.
Vekic was a hugely promising junior, and aged 16, she said she wanted to be the world No 1. She won her first WTA title, the 2014 Malaysian Open, at 17, and made steady if unspectacular progress for the next few years. After a few final defeats, it took until 2017 for her to win her second title — on the grass at Nottingham in the UK. She beat Britain’s Johanna Konta in the final, but then lost an epic to the same player at Wimbledon a couple of weeks later, 10-8 in the third set. It was an agonising defeat, but Vekic was showing her grass-court pedigree, and she cracked the world’s top 50 for the first time soon after.
The following year, Vekic reached the Wimbledon fourth round. Vekic said during last month’s Wimbledon run that she’s a “different person” from then, and has “matured more”. She ended 2019 at a career-high ranking of No 19 — now ranked No 21, she looks well set to beat that soon.
Vekic with the Nottingham title in 2017 (Jordan Mansfield/Getty Images for LTA)
Two years on, in January 2021, Vekic had knee surgery that kept her out until that year’s French Open. She thought seriously about quitting and at Wimbledon last month, she said, “Those couple of years were very tough. I didn’t think I was ever going to come back to the level that I even had last year.”
Vekic struggled on and got her reward at the Australian Open in January 2023 — though it ended in familiar heartbreak. Vekic battled to a second major quarterfinal, this time against Aryna Sabalenka, but appeared to freeze on the big stage. She served three double faults in the first game, nine in the first set and 13 overall, in what was a straight-sets defeat. Afterwards, she said that her serve “was all over the place”, before adding, with a rueful smile, “but I think mostly in the net”.
Vekic’s serve crumbled against eventual champion Sabalenka (William West / AFP via Getty Images)
That self-deprecation and sense of humour is an important part of the Vekic package.
Fast forward to this year, and after an indifferent run of results came that reckoning at Roland Garros.
“I didn’t have any energy, any motivation to keep practising, to keep pushing. The last couple months, I gave everything for tennis, and I wasn’t getting the results I expected,” she said.
“It was a very, very tough moment, but they (her team) were all there for me.”
Back on the grass, Vekic reached the final at Bad Homburg, changing her usual routine by playing an event the week before Wimbledon. It paid off.
She instantly looked comfortable at Wimbledon. Propelled by a bruising serve and beefy forehand, she bludgeoned (and drop-shotted) her way to the last four. Her three-set defeat to Paolini was the longest women’s semifinal in Wimbledon history and one of the tournament’s best matches, lasting nine minutes shy of three hours.
GO DEEPER
Jasmine Paolini beats Donna Vekic to reach Wimbledon final after knife-edge match tiebreak
Vekic’s ability to effectively employ the “reset” mantra defined her Wimbledon run as much as her tennis, and it’s been a key in Paris too. The Croatian actually pressed the reset button between Wimbledon and the Olympics, heading from London straight to the beach in her home country, where she could put the disappointment of the Paolini defeat behind her.
Against Ukraine’s Dayana Yastremska in the third round, Vekic gave up the second set having held a match point. She appeared to be slipping to another disappointing defeat. Instead, she came out and won the decider 6-1.
“She did a great job of resetting,” said Shriver, who travels with Vekic for the biggest events of the year, but for the Olympics is doing what she can remotely from her home in Los Angeles.
In the next round, Vekic said she was “freaking out” but then used a rain delay when trailing Spain’s Paula Badosa 5-1 in the second set to gather herself. Shriver told Vekic: “Just trust yourself on this one. You know how to deal with it.”
By the time Vekic was in the quarterfinals, “She was just in that place where you want to be in the quarterfinals of a major, which is like with the blinders on,” Shriver said.
“And so Nick (Horvat, her main coach) and I were like, ‘We just sit back and let her do her thing’.”
Part of her thing is admitting that she does not have much of a poker face. Vekic’s emotions are almost always writ large, and even when up in matches, it feels as if she would rather be anywhere than on a tennis court. At Wimbledon, she recovered from breaking down in tears — from physical pain, rather than emotion — against Paolini to play a magnificently composed point when match point down, forcing a match tiebreak from a position in which she looked ready to crumble.
“She lets people know what she’s feeling,” Shriver said. “But that’s OK. She’s learned to use the time between points, and she’s letting the stress out and resetting.
“You have to apply those resetting skills at the right time. She’s doing really good things. It could be breathing. It could be anything.”
Vekic’s tears at Wimbledon were caused by injury rather than emotion (Francois Nel/Getty Images)
One of Vekic’s most obvious and effective resets at Wimbledon came in the quarterfinal against Sun, the New Zealand qualifier playing with the obvious freedom of having nothing to lose. Vekic generally served brilliantly in the match, but when she served for the second set she hit five double faults — the second-most in a game by any player in Wimbledon history.
She reset, won the next game to take the set, and then won the first 13 points of the decider.
“I was so angry. I was so angry at myself,” Vekic said after the match.
“I was like, ‘No, this is not happening right now’. I could hear Pam shouting, ‘Reset, reset’. I was like, ‘Reset what?’.”
Vekic then laughed as she relived the fury she was feeling. She laughed again when asked if she had benefited from the new rules that allow players to speak to their coaches.
“Probably not,” she said. “I told them to shut up five times during the match.”
Keeping the serve solid has been a priority for Vekic and her team. “We’ve talked about a lot of things that she can do, whether it’s hit the second serve first because she has an aggressive second serve,” Shriver said.
“Sometimes ‘up, up’ is a team mantra on the serve because if you’re not going up after it that’s not good. She’s getting to the point where she can do a lot of this on her own, as long as she has the clarity.”
Vekic recovered from a disastrous service game against Lulu Sun (Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)
This is where the emotional element comes in, with the mental stresses of a match affecting the serve like no other shot. Shriver, who reached eight major singles semifinals and one final, but couldn’t get over the line, can relate. “If it gets too emotional, then it’s hard to be clear,” she said. “And I know that 100 per cent because I was very emotional as a player. And I look back and I’m like, ‘Dang, that definitely hurt me’. I let the emotions have a domino effect.”
Vekic was able to resist that domino effect against Gauff. After going 4-2 up on that disputed break point, after which Gauff had a lengthy discussion with the chair umpire and tournament supervisor, Vekic quickly went down 0-40. After missing one serve, the crowd booed, still feeling aggrieved for the American. “It’s not my fault,” Vekic said to herself.
She saved the break points, and won that game and the next one to win the match.
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Vekic is always quick to pay tribute to her support team, led by her main coach Horvat. Shriver is a big admirer of Horvat too and said they work well together — speaking to each other during matches about who should send what message and when. They collaborate on opposition analysis, too, which starts as soon as the opponent is known. “But Donna’s the leader,” Shriver said.
That extends to Vekic and her team being straightforward about her previous shortcomings. “Part of the mindset training is like, ‘Don’t let the elephants in the room just go quiet’,” Shriver said.
“We’re addressing it a little bit more as a team.”
Vekic stayed calm against Gauff to record a stunning win (Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)
Against Kostyuk late at night in Paris, Vekic had to summon every ounce of the advice Shriver, Horvat, and her team had given her. She led 5-1 in a scintillating first set, before being reeled back to 5-4. She double-faulted when serving for the set, but closed it out.
She hit another double fault up match point in the third set, and was broken when serving for the match at 5-4, and again at 6-5 (when she also missed a match point), after breaking the Kostyuk serve at 5-5.
She went 4-0 down and then 5-2 down in the third-set tiebreak. She came back again. She went match point down. She hit a return winner inside-out. And after some more back-and-forth, it was fittingly an ace, delivered with the serve that has hampered her in the past, that secured victory. Vekic was involved in the best match of Wimbledon against Paolini, and here she was part of the best of the Olympics so far.
Her matches are often so full of emotion and plot twists that they make Andy Murray’s seem positively chilled out.
Always honest, Vekic is happy to admit that she doesn’t enjoy these big occasions. “No, not at all,” Vekic said at Wimbledon. “A lot of the times I’m like, ‘I just cannot wait for this match to be over’. It’s tough out there. Doesn’t matter if it’s first round, second round, quarterfinals, it’s tough to enjoy.”
She added: “The part that I do enjoy is playing on big courts with such an amazing crowd. That’s the part that I try to soak in while I’m playing. I have to always remind myself to enjoy it.”
As for her coaches, Vekic said, “What I like about her (Shriver) and everyone in my team, they always say it the way it is. They don’t try to sugarcoat things. They’re very direct, which I really appreciate.”
On Shriver, she added: “She’s an amazing person, amazing mentor. I’m really proud to have her in my team.”
Twelve years on from turning pro, this one-time prodigy is making good on her rich potential. And having considered retiring less than three months ago, Vekic is now all in — at 28, there’s nothing to hold back for.
“There’s a point in your career where you’re no longer the rising youngster, right?” said
Shriver, who herself was a teenage sensation, reaching the U.S. Open final as a 16-year-old. “You’ve been around long enough. You know your body well. So now it’s like, ‘OK, it’s not like you’re trying to protect a future 15-year career’. This also means not over-celebrating her achievements. This is the life of a tennis player — no matter what peak you scale, there’s always another match and tournament.
“She may well have other unbelievable opportunities. But the only one we want to concern ourselves with is this opportunity.”
Shriver was talking about Wimbledon but a few weeks on, those words are just as relevant to Vekic’s Olympics bid. All she needs to concern herself with is this opportunity. She is two wins away from a gold medal, which would have seemed impossible when she considered retirement at the same venue in May.
Additional reporting: Matthew Futterman
(Top photo: Patricia de Melo Moreira/AFP via Getty Images)