Donna Vekić

2012–2013: First WTA Tour finals

At the 2012 Tashkent Open, Vekić made it to her first WTA Tour final. It was her first main-draw appearance at a WTA tournament. She was the youngest player in six years to make it to a WTA final, and defeated by Irina-Camelia Begu in straight sets.^[3]

Vekić started her year off by entering the main draw of the 2013 Australian Open. She defeated Andrea Hlaváčková in the first round 6–1, 6–2. In the second round, Vekić fell to the tenth seed and former world No. 1, Caroline Wozniacki 1–6, 4–6.^[4]

Seeded 16th for qualifying at the Sony Open Tennis, Vekić qualified for the main draw by defeating Marta Sirotkina and Valeria Savinykh. In the first round, she beat fellow qualifier Yulia Putintseva 7–6(4), 6–0. In the second round, Vekić lost to the 29th seed Elena Vesnina. At the Monterrey Open, Vekić defeated Julia Cohen in the first round. In the second round, she lost to the seventh seed Urszula Radwańska. Vekić won the 50k tournament in Istanbul defeating Elizaveta Kulichkova in the final.

2014: First WTA title

Vekić's 2014 season began with first-round losses in Shenzhen, the Australian Open and the Pattaya Open. At this point, her last tour win was at the 2013 Tashkent Open.

Vekić was awarded a wildcard at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, defeating qualifier Olivia Rogowska in the first round before losing in round two to 12th seed Dominika Cibulková. At the Sony Open in Miami, she came through qualifying with wins over Alla Kudryavtseva and Johanna Larsson, and then beat fellow qualifier Kimiko Date-Krumm in straight sets in round one of the main draw. In the second round, Vekić beat Svetlana Kuznetsova, also in straight sets, before losing to Petra Kvitová in round three. At the Monterrey Open, Vekić beat Garbiñe Muguruza in the first round in two tie-breaking sets,^[5] but lost to Karolína Plíšková in the second round in three sets.

At the Malaysian Open, Vekić won her first career WTA title and had one of the biggest wins of her career when she defeated the world No. 10 Cibulková in a third set tie-breaker in the final.^[6] On her way to the final, she won three of her four matches after losing the first set (against Chan Yung-jan, Kristýna Plíšková and Zhang Shuai).

2015: Fourth WTA final and French Open third round

Vekić started her year as the world No. 81. After a bad start to the 2015 season, she beat Louisa Chirico at Indian Wells but lost in the second round to Zarina Diyas. After her ranking dropped to No. 177, she entered the ITF event in Istanbul as the top seed, but lost in the quarterfinals to the 6th seed, Margarita Gasparyan. She lost in the first round in the WTA tournament in Marrakesh and in the second round in the Madrid Open.

In the French Open she claimed her first top-40 victory in the season when she beat Caroline Garcia, and also defeated Bojana Jovanovski before bowing out to Ana Ivanovic. After the French Open she continued her bad form from the first half of the season by failing to qualifying for Wimbledon or the US Open. In Tashkent she reached the final with three-set wins over Kiki Bertens, Carina Witthöft and Anna-Lena Friedsam and a two-set victory over Evgeniya Rodina, but lost 2–6, 2–6 to Nao Hibino. She ended her season ranked No. 105.

2016

Vekić began the season ranked 103. At the Australian Open, she lost 3–6, 2–6 in the first round to Japanese qualifier Naomi Osaka. She reached the quarterfinals of the San Antonio Open, with wins over Aliaksandra Sasnovich and Kiki Bertens, before losing to Tsvetana Pironkova. She lost in the first round of ten consecutive WTA tournaments from February to August, including the French Open, where she lost to Madison Keys, and Wimbledon, where she took Venus Williams to a first-set tie-break but lost in straight sets.

At the Cincinnati Masters in August, Vekić had victories over Varvara Lepchenko and Mariana Duque-Marino in qualifying, and defeated world No. 25 Ana Ivanovic 6–4, 6–2 in the first round, before losing to tenth seed Johanna Konta in the second round. She failed to progress through qualifying for the US Open. In September, she reached the final of the ITF tournament in Saint Petersburg, with wins over Olga Doroshina, Anastasiya Komardina, Vesna Dolonc and Aryna Sabalenka, before losing the final to Natalia Vikhlyantseva in straight sets. In Tashkent, she lost in the first round to Kateryna Kozlova. In Tianjin, after her victory over Kai-Lin Zhang, she lost to the second seed Svetlana Kuznetsova.

In October, at the ITF Sharm El Sheikh event, she had victories over Laura Pigossi, Jaqueline Cristian (walkover) and Arantxa Rus, before she beat Maria Sakkari in three sets in the semifinals to reach her second ITF final of the year. In the final, she defeated Spain's Sara Sorribes Tormo 6–2, 6–7, 6–3, to win the fifth ITF title of her career. In Poitiers, she lost in the first round to Lauren Davis, while in Limoges she reached the third round, where she lost in three sets to world No. 24 and top-seed Caroline Garcia. Vekić ended the season ranked No. 101.

2017

She reached the second round at the Australian Open, where she lost 3–6, 1–6 to Caroline Wozniacki. Vekić won her second WTA title at the Nottingham Open in June, defeating Johanna Konta 2–6, 7–6, 7–5. Two weeks later, in the second round of the Wimbledon Championships, she lost to Konta 6–7, 6–4, 8–10. At the US Open, she reached the third round of a Grand Slam tournament for the first time since the 2015 French Open, losing 2–6, 3–6 to Anastasija Sevastova. On 25 September, she reached a new career-high singles ranking of world No. 45.

2018

In September Vekić reached the semifinals in Tokio, defeating on the way to it top-10 players Sloane Stephens and Caroline Garcia.

Singles: 6 (2 titles, 4 runner-ups)

Result	W–L	Date	Tournament	Tier	Surface	Opponent	Score
Loss	0–1	Sep 2012	Tashkent Open, Uzbekistan	International	Hard	Irina-Camelia Begu	4–6, 4–6
Loss	0–2	Jun 2013	Birmingham Classic, UK	International	Grass	Daniela Hantuchová	6–7(5–7), 4–6
Win	1–2	Apr 2014	Malaysian Open, Malaysia	International	Hard	Dominika Cibulková	5–7, 7–5, 7–6(7–4)
Loss	1–3	Sep 2015	Tashkent Open, Uzbekistan	International	Hard	Nao Hibino	2–6, 2–6
Win	2–3	Jun 2017	Nottingham Open, UK	International	Grass	Johanna Konta	2–6, 7–6(7–3), 7–5
Loss	2–4	Aug 2018	Washington Open, United States	International	Hard	Svetlana Kuznetsova	6–4, 6–7(7–9), 2–6

Singles (5–8)

Outcome	No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Opponent	Score
Runner-up	1.	18 April 2011	Hvar, Croatia	Clay	Ema Burgić	5–7, 6–7(2–7)
Winner	1.	25 July 2011	Chiswick, United Kingdom	Hard	Bojana Bobusic	3–6, 6–3, 6–3
Runner-up	2.	15 August 2011	Westende, Belgium	Hard	Lu Jiajing	4–6, 6–7(4–7)
Runner-up	3.	22 October 2011	Lagos, Nigeria	Hard	Elina Svitolina	4–6, 3–6
Runner-up	4.	29 October 2011	Lagos, Nigeria	Hard	Tamaryn Hendler	4–6, 5–7
Winner	2.	24 March 2012	Bangalore, India	Hard	Andrea Koch Benvenuto	6–2, 6–4
Runner-up	5.	21 April 2012	Namangan, Uzbekistan	Hard	Olga Puchkova	6–3, 3–6, 2–6
Winner	3.	20 May 2012	Fergana, Uzbekistan	Hard	Nadiia Kichenok	6–2, 6–2
Runner-up	6.	22 July 2012	Campos do Jordão, Brazil	Hard	María Irigoyen	5–7, 0–6
Runner-up	7.	29 July 2012	Wrexham, United Kingdom	Hard	Carina Witthöft	2–6, 7–6(7–4), 2–6
Winner	4.	28 April 2013	Istanbul, Turkey	Hard	Elizaveta Kulichkova	6–4, 7–6(7–4)
Runner-up	8.	23 September 2016	Saint Petersburg, Russia	Hard (i)	Natalia Vikhlyantseva	1–6, 2–6
Winner	5.	23 October 2016	Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt	Hard	Sara Sorribes Tormo	6–2, 6–7(7–9), 6–3

Doubles (1–0)

Outcome	No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Partner	Opponents	Score
Winner	1.	20 August 2011	Westende, Belgium	Hard	Alexandra Walker	Anouk Delefortrie Déborah Kerfs	6–4, 6–3

Singles

Doubles

Singles

Edition	Stage	Date	Location	Against	Surface	Opponent	W/L	Score
2012 Fed Cup Europe/Africa Zone Group I	R/R	2 February 2012	Eilat, Israel	Poland	Hard	Urszula Radwańska	L	3–6, 3–6
	P/O	4 February 2012		Bosnia and Herzegovina		Anita Husarić	W	6–2, 6–0
2013 Fed Cup Europe/Africa Zone Group I	R/R	6 February 2013	Eilat, Israel	Austria	Hard	Yvonne Meusburger	W	6–1, 6–3
		7 February 2013		Georgia		Margalita Chakhnashvili	W	6–0, 6–1
		8 February 2013		Belarus		Ilona Kremen	W	6–1, 7–6(7–2)
	P/O	9 February 2013		Poland		Agnieszka Radwańska	L	3–6, 2–6
2014 Fed Cup Europe/Africa Zone Group I	R/R	4 February 2014	Budapest, Hungary	Netherlands	Hard (i)	Kiki Bertens	L	2–6, 4–6
		5 February 2014		Luxembourg		Anne Kremer	W	6–1, 6–2
		7 February 2014		Belgium		Yanina Wickmayer	L	3–6, 2–6
	P/O	9 February 2014		Turkey		Melis Sezer	W	6–2, 6–1
2015 Fed Cup Europe/Africa Zone Group I	R/R	4 February 2015	Budapest, Hungary	Israel	Hard (i)	Julia Glushko	W	6–2, 6–7(6–8), 7–5
		5 February 2015		Latvia		Jeļena Ostapenko	L	3–6, 1–6
	P/O	7 February 2015		Serbia		Aleksandra Krunić	L	1–6, 1–6

Doubles

Edition	Stage	Date	Location	Against	Surface	Partner	Opponents	W/L	Score
2012 Fed Cup Europe/Africa Zone Group I	R/R	2 February 2012	Eilat, Israel	Poland	Hard	Ani Mijačika	Magda Linette Alicja Rosolska	L	5–7, 5–7