Stay Ready: Can Donna Vekic cap a career renaissance at the 2024 US Open?

NEW YORK—Donna Vekic is not the biggest fan of the Big Apple. That may be putting it lightly.

“I hate New York,” she deadpans.

I smile, thinking she’s made a joke.

“It’s not a joke!” she insists.

We’re chatting at a “Come to Play” clinic for the Harlem Junior Tennis & Education Program, in the best weather the city has seen all summer. Aside from having to dodge a couple stray shots from a few future champions—Caroline Garcia, another featured guest, is doing her best to block them back—we couldn’t ask for more favorable conditions.

“The traffic kills me,” she finally explains. “We always spend two hours in the car, like every single day. When I come back to the hotel, I just lay low.”

Vekic isn’t exactly under the radar these days. The 28-year-old has taken the fast lane into a career renaissance since Wimbledon, where following years of knee and foot injuries, she stormed into her first Grand Slam semifinal. A month later, she was on an entirely different surface but nonetheless on the podium at the Olympics. She brought the medal to New York, keeping it in the hotel safe.

“It’s going to be with me for a while,” assures Vekic, who nearly skipped the Summer Games entirely.

“I had so much pain in my arm, I was on antibiotics the day we were flying to Paris,” she recalled. “I was dead, and then I was so nervous because I felt like all of Croatia was watching.”

Off the court, Vekic has grown a small but mighty lifestyle brand, designing a line of country club-inspired apparel for the eponymous *Donna Sport* and launching *DNNA*, an award-winning collection of candles and interior fragrances.

Otherwise, she is entirely unpretentious.

“When I went to Croatia after Wimbledon, so many people came up to me saying, ‘Congratulations,’ and at first, I was like, ‘Fuck, you should be saying “I’m sorry,” not “Congratulations!”’”

She can laugh about it now, but her semifinal defeat to Jasmine Paolini at the All England Club was devastating enough that it’s a wonder it didn’t completely derail her season.

“I don’t know if I’ve even recovered from that,” she admits.

I’m always going to be involved in tennis in one way or another. I’m really enjoying activities where I get to work with kids, and after my successes at Wimbledon and the Olympics, so many kids are starting to play tennis in Croatia. That’s amazing. Donna Vekic

Up a set and a break on the Roland Garros finalist, Vekic was hampered by pain in her right arm and ultimately lost one of the best matches of 2024 in a third-set tiebreaker.

Looking back, she credits those well-meaning fans for pushing through the injury and an unexpected illness in order to compete for her country.

“A lot of them told me it was the first time they watched tennis since Goran Ivanisevic played. So, for them to be watching me, to be watching women’s tennis, it really meant a lot.

“And then 10 days later I had a medal!”

Of course, nothing in Paris came easy. She edged through one tiebreaker to upset No. 2 seed Coco Gauff and weathered another to survive Marta Kostyuk and reach the medal rounds. Up against Anna Karolina Schmiedlova in the semifinals, Vekic found herself in an effectively must-win match after world No. 1 Iga Swiatek had lost her semifinal earlier in the day.

“I mean, holy shit,” she exclaims. “When I saw Iga lost and that if I lost, I would have to play her the next day at 2PM and it was like, a 9PM start for my semifinal? I was like, it’s not an option to lose this one!”

Coached from afar by American Hall of Famer Pam Shriver, the former No. 19 emerged an entirely different player from the one who struggled to close out Paolini. She blasted through a 6-0 second set to guarantee her place on the podium.

“I swear to God, during the whole match, I didn’t know my name or what was going on. I was just in the moment, trying to hit the ball into the court and not trying to think too much.

“But I realized at 5-0, 40-0: this is it, there’s no way I’m losing this match. And I was smiling, but as I threw my arm up for the serve, I could see my arm was shaking so much. It was so stressful, but after that, it was the greatest moment of my life.”

Inspired but emotionally exhausted, Vekic is less clear on how she handicaps her chances at the Open as she closes in on a return to the Top 20.

“I feel like everything’s caught up with me a bit,” she says, ducking another errant shot from one of the youngsters. “Now that I have a medal, I feel like I’ve made it. If I don’t win anything else, it’ll be fine. But it definitely motivated me even more, not just the medal but the Wimbledon semifinals. Getting that close to a final showed me I can do it.”

Vekic reached the quarterfinals at the previous peak of her powers in 2019, but prefers a slower hard court despite her perennial grass-court success.

“Cincinnati was like playing on ice, so the courts here are a bit slower than Cincinnati,” she says, adding a “Thank God!” for emphasis.

One thing she does like about New York? Her credential photo, which matches the full glam Olympic headshot that went viral amid a slew of more unfortunate efforts.

“Man, I have no idea how they got that,” she later texts with a flurry of cry-laugh emojis. That’s the photo from my driver’s license!”

As I told her at the time: if you stay ready, you don’t have to get ready.

“It’s tough to beat winning a silver medal, but we still have a Slam in front of us,” she agreed. “Maybe my best moment is yet to come.”