Donna Vekic

Donna Vekić has been a fixture on tour since she was barely old enough to drive. Born in Osijek in 1996 to two athletes, she started playing at six and trained at IMG Academy from age nine. She reached her first WTA final at 16 on her main-draw debut in Tashkent, then lifted her maiden title at 2014 Kuala Lumpur as a 17-year-old. What followed was the long middle-class grind — competitive every week, slowed repeatedly by knee surgery, rarely making the leap.

The game is flat, hard, first-strike tennis. Vekić takes the ball early off both wings, leans on a heavy serve, and shortens points before the rally can build. The forehand is the hammer and the second serve the vulnerability; when the returns are landing she can trade with anyone in the top 10, and when they aren't the unforced-error count climbs fast. It's high-variance, low-margin tennis that rewards the fan who likes ball-striking over construction.

The breakthrough took a decade. After cracking the top 20 for the first time in 2019 on the back of a US Open quarterfinal run, Vekić finally cashed her ceiling in 2024 — a Wimbledon semifinal, an Olympic silver medal in Paris, and a career-high ranking of No. 18. She's logged wins over the likes of Coco Gauff, Jasmine Paolini and Elena Rybakina, and remains a name no seed wants in an early round at Wimbledon or the US Open.

Now 29 and ranked 76, Vekić is climbing again — the familiar story of a first-striker whose floor is high but whose peak demands the serve and the forehand fire together. On her week, she can still take out a top-10 player anywhere from Melbourne to Roland-Garros.