Donna Vekic, the 28-year-old Croatian tennis player, has achieved a historic feat by becoming her country’s first-ever Olympic singles finalist. Her journey to the final is even more remarkable considering she was close to quitting tennis earlier this year. After a knee surgery and a period of disillusionment, Vekic nearly walked away from the sport before the French Open. However, she persevered and went on to reach the Wimbledon semifinals last month, ultimately falling to Jasmine Paolini in a grueling match. Now, she finds herself on the cusp of winning an Olympic gold medal.
Vekic’s Wimbledon run provided a glimpse into the emotional turmoil she endured before the French Open. “I wanted to pull out of the French Open. I wanted to go home. I wanted to take a longer break,” she confessed. “I didn’t have any energy, any motivation to keep practicing, keep pushing because I felt like the last couple months I’ve given everything for tennis, and I wasn’t getting the results that I kind of expected.” Despite losing in the third round of the French Open, her return to Paris has been nothing short of spectacular.
Her path to the final included a notable victory over second seed Coco Gauff and a grueling three-hour quarter-final match against Marta Kostyuk, which she won after double-faulting on a match point. In the semi-finals, she dominated Anna Karolina Schmiedlova with a resounding 6-4, 6-0 win.
While ecstatic about reaching the final, Vekic admitted to feeling more nervous than she did during her Wimbledon semifinal. “It’s very tough for me to talk about the match right now because I was so nervous,” she said to reporters. “At times I just wanted to disappear from the court. I didn’t want to be out there. When you’re playing for a medal, it’s different than any other event, I was even more nervous than during the semi-final of Wimbledon.”
Vekic’s opponent in the final will be Zheng Qinwen of China, who upset world number one Iga Świątek in the other semi-final. “When I saw that Iga lost, I was like: ‘Oh, I better win my match because it would have been tough (Saturday)‘. “But, Qinwen is playing great tennis. It’s going to be a tough match,” said Vekic.
Vekic’s journey to the Olympic final is a testament to her resilience and determination. From the brink of retirement to a gold medal match, her story is an inspiration to aspiring athletes and a reminder that even the most challenging of circumstances can be overcome with unwavering belief in oneself.
