Good things come to those who wait. On Tuesday, 11 and a half years after her Grand Slam debut, Donna Vekic defeated her opponent 5-7, 6-4, 6-1 to reach her first Grand Slam semi-final and her 43rd match. Grand Slam tournament. Vekic blasted 11 aces and six double faults – including serving five times in one game in the second set – before rallying in the final set to face Italy’s Giacomo in the semi-finals. Smin Paolini or American Emma Navarro.
“It was a very difficult game and she played unbelievably,” said an exhausted Vekic as tears began to flow. “I felt like she really pushed me to my limit. I felt like I was going to die in the first two sets, but I kept going, hoping for a chance, and finally I did.
Watching Vekic play can be a stressful experience, and the nerves and intensity of the game are evident on her face. After undergoing knee surgery in 2021, she wasn’t sure if she would ever compete at this level again, and plantar fasciitis and more knee issues interrupted her progress the following year. Just days before last month’s French Open, she realized she no longer wanted to play.
“I didn’t have any energy, any motivation to keep practicing, keep working hard, because I felt like I had given everything to tennis in the past few months and I didn’t get the results I expected,” she said. “It was a very, very difficult moment, but [her team] Everything is around me.
Vekic reached the third round in Paris, but lost the first set 6-0 to Olga Danilovich. The pain of that failure restored her desire to some extent. “Honestly, it hurt me so much that I saw what I needed to change. It pushed me and inspired me.
On Tuesday, she will need all her hunger and fighting spirit to beat Sun Yang, who qualified through qualifying to become the first New Zealand woman in the Open era to reach the quarter-finals. After defeating Emma Raducanu in the previous round, the left-hander once again found her home on the big stage, this time on court one, knocking out Vekic with a flat shot. A break of serve in the 11th game gave her the lead, and a wonderful lob opened the scoring for her.
Vekic became more outspoken in the second set, holding serve to maintain the lead and eventually break at 5-3, but quickly regained the lead thanks to five double faults. Former doubles star Pam Shriver and members of her coaching staff told her to start over. “I was like, reset what?” Vecchi said. But somehow she did it and broke serve with a small winner of her own to level the match.
After the start of the third set, the fight on Sun Yang seemed to disappear, and Vekic raised his tail and led 5-0. Although Sun Yang held serve, Vekic easily finished the game and locked in a spot in the semi-finals. “Donna played really well,” Sun said. “She won it in the second set. At the end of the second and third set, I had some cramping issues. Maybe my only regret is that I wasn’t physically able to keep up, but she She played better today and she deserves this win.
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Sun Yang will now rise from 123rd to just outside the world’s top 50, and the 23-year-old will gain huge confidence as he reaches the quarter-finals. She said she was even more proud to hear people from across New Zealand gather at tennis clubs to watch the matches live on television. “To be honest, I’m really happy to see this,” she said. “To get people to watch tennis more and more, and to grow the sport here in New Zealand, and for future generations, I’m really excited for this to happen. I can’t wait for it to grow up.”
Vekic, meanwhile, is the first Croatian woman to reach the semi-finals at Wimbledon since Mirjana Lucic in 1999. .
