“It’s a daily battle”: Donna Vekic looks for motivation after Olympic breakthrough

NEW YORK—Carlos Alcaraz wasn’t the only one sporting a new hairstyle this summer.

“You like it?” Donna Vekic asked, shaking out her shorn locks over the US Open interview table. “I needed a change. One of the many changes I needed. I feel like a new person. It’s so much lighter!”

🖥️📲Stream Vekic's first-round Wuhan match vs. Belinda Bencic on the TC App!

Not since Nicki Minaj has someone been so known for a bob, but the Olympic silver medalist channeled the Paris 2024 logo after Wimbledon in an effort to take back her power following a disheartening European swing.

“I was very disappointed with the clay season,” the former No. 17 told me. “Every year, it kills me. Every year, I give a little bit more, and it doesn’t give back! I mean, I did win a medal on clay, so maybe that’s enough for the rest of my life on clay. But that kind of drained me. Then when you go with low confidence on grass, and I was defending a lot of points, I had some tough matches. I was just expecting a lot and feeling a lot of pressure. That wasn’t great.”

A year prior Vekic excelled on both sides of the Channel, reaching her first Grand Slam semifinal at the All England Club and sliding onto the Olympic podium with wins over Coco Gauff and Marta Kostyuk. At the time, she was of two minds of whether her form was a new peak or her career pinnacle.

“Now that I have a medal, I feel like I’ve made it. If I don’t win anything else, it’ll be fine,” she told me last summer. “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.”

The results, which earned her a return to the Top 20, were a culmination of two years under coach Pam Shriver. A Hall of Famer-turned-commentator, Shriver famously came on board in the middle of the 2022 San Diego Open; that same week, Vekic reached the final.

She added Sascha Bajin to the coaching team at the end of 2024, but both Bajin and Shriver were gone by the summer and Vekic, who has since dropped out of the Top 70, was without a coach coming into the final Grand Slam tournament of the season.

“I feel like I’ve been doing all the right things in training, but the results haven’t been what I expect or what I want,” she said after a physical victory over Jessica Bouzas Maneiro. “Staying motivated and pushing through has not been easy, but when you get a win like this or a win against Maria [Sakkari] last week in Monterrey, those were good matches.”

Hampered by a bruised finger, Vekic snacked on sushi between questions and chatted with Gaël Monfils in the adjacent interview cubicle.

“Are you dead?” she asked after hugging her fellow veteran.

“Lucky it was a quick one!” Monfils joked back about his five-set loss to Roman Safiullin.

At 29, Vekic is ten years younger than Monfils but dealing with similar struggles as both face the back halves of their respective careers.

“When you’re older, you should be able to deal with some things a little bit easier, but I’m not! I get more nervous than ever. I don’t know why. It’s tough to balance it.”

Some of those nerves were on display under the lights of Arthur Ashe Stadium, where she failed to serve out the first set and ultimately lost in straight sets to Gauff. Though she debated shutting down her season, Vekic has soldiered on through the Asian swing, even if the future is becoming a bigger question in her mind.

“That’s heavy for Tuesday at 10PM,” she teased when I asked what 2026 looked like. “But yeah, the end is definitely near. How long do I want to play? I don’t know. The problem is that it’s getting tougher and tougher to do the things I need to be doing to be at the level I want to be at. It’s a daily battle, to be honest. I’m just trying to take it day by day and see how much I can push myself because this sport is brutal.

“It’s funny: yesterday, I was watching Venus and seeing adverts about tennis being the world’s healthiest sport. I was like, ‘What? More like the word’s unhealthiest sport if you play it as much as we do and live the life that we do!’”

For all its hazards, Vekic has nonetheless carved out quite a life on tour, forging friendships and creating multiple business opportunities. But when she does finally hang up her racquets, don’t expect to see the Queen of Candles swimming in the proverbial shark tank.

“I have so many interests, but when I stop, I think I’ll just want to rest,” laughed Vekic, who is finding peace in the hairdresser’s chair, “and do nothing.”