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| Donna Vekic with her maiden WTA title at the BMW Malaysian Open in Kuala Lumpur |
Donna Vekic was born in Osijek, Croatia on 28 June 1996, into a gifted sporting family. Her family over 3 generations, ranged from Physical Education teachers, Archers, professional Soccer players and even a professional track athlete, but not one tennis player in the family.
Donna herself started out as a Gymnast but fate intervened very early on, at 6 years old, she hurt her ankle... Whilst recovering from the ankle injury, she became bored of doing nothing and she begged her dad to take her to tennis practice. Hobbling around on a hurt ankle clasping onto an oversized racquet, the Tennis Gods called her name and, well, that as they say, was that.
It truly seems that she took to tennis like a duck to water. Donna developed at a rapid rate and a mere 10 years down the road, she was chosen to represent Croatia in the Fed Cup in 2012, she was 16. That same year she reached her first WTA tour final at the Tashkent Open in Uzbekistan. She won 7 matches in a row, through qualifying into the final, making her the youngest player in 6 years to make it to a WTA final. She ended losing 6-4, 6-4 to Irina-Camelia Begu. She also reached 4 finals on the ITF circuit in 2012, winning 2 titles.
In 2013, she reached the final of the Aegon Classic in Birmingham, a warmup tournament on grass, where she was toppled by the crisp skills of the experienced Daniella Hantuchova. She also added another ITF title to her resume that year.
She finally broke through on the WTA tour with her maiden title in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in April this year when she defeated Australian Open runner up, Dominika Cibulkova in a marathon match, 5-7 7-5 7-6(4). Coming from a set down, to avenge her second round loss to Domi a month earlier at Indian Wells.
Donna’s rankings in itself tells of success, promise and talent. She started out locally on the ITF Pro circuit in Croatia in 2010. That year, she would not play any WTA level events. In 2011, winning 1 title on the ITF circuit she managed to end the 2011 at #392. One year on, 2 ITF titles, and her first final appearance on the WTA level later she ended 2012 in the top 150 at #118. In 2013 she broke the top 100, with a career high of #62 in July, but ultimately fell down the rankings to #86 to close out 2013. Thus, making the youngest player in the top 200 when the Year End ranking list was brought out on 4 November 2013.
A strange factoid on the young Croat, with the exception of some legendary advisors who Donna has worked with, the likes of Nick Bolletieri, Chris Evert, Sven Groeneveld and Miljenko Rak, all her coaches' names start with a D... Damir Barišić, Domagoj Lacković, Davor Grgić, Dado Majoli and David Felgate. Even her conditioning trainer’s name is Dario Novak.
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| Donna Vekic with Dominika Cibulkova |
2014 has yet to reap exceptional rewards for the very gifted young Vekic, but be sure to keep an eye on her, her sights firmly set on breaking into the top 50 in 2014, may be a goal that’s not impossible to reach.
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@DonnaVekic
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