Donna Vekic explained her relationship with her coach Pam Shriver after beating Lulu Sun in the quarter-finals of Wimbledon 2024.
A teary-eyed Donna Vekic shook hands with New Zealand qualifier Lulu Sun after over two hours on court, to reach a territory at Wimbledon she’s never known.
A gutsy comeback from the 28-year-old saw tensions fray with her team throughout as she managed to power past Emma Raducanu’s conqueror 5-7, 6-4, 6-1.
By clinching the final set, she became the first Croatian woman to reach the semi-finals at the All England Club since Mirjana Lučić-Baroni in 1999.
With Jasmine Paolini thrashing America’s Emma Navarro on Tuesday evening in under an hour, Vekic remains the only unseeded player remaining in the draw and will look to disrupt the Italian’s rhythm on Thursday.
What caused such an outburst from Donna Vekic?
Vekic is currently coached by former world number three and 22-time Grand Slam doubles winner Pam Shriver, who in her retirement has also taken up a regular seat in the commentary booth.
With in-game coaching now allowed, the semi-finalist was asked whether that was something that she benefited from.
Speaking in her press conference via the official Wimbledon website, Vekic joked: “Probably not. I told them to shut up five times during the match. Probably not. But it’s also nice when I reach out to them, that I can reach out in case I need help. I know that they’re always there.
“I was so angry,” she explained. “I was so angry at myself because, even to get broken in the first set at 5-All, then finally managed to break her in the second set, then get broken again. I don’t know where those double-faults came from. I wasn’t particularly nervous. I was surprised that I was just hitting double-faults
“I was like, No, this is not happening right now. I could hear Pam shouting, Reset, reset. I was like, Reset what? I was already kind of… didn’t think I was going to break her again. I was just trying to think how I’m going to play my service game at 5-All.”
Despite the frosty interactions with her team, Vekic showed an immense amount of composure to hustle her way back into the second, before bulldozing the third to make Croatian tennis history.
Could Donna Vekic go all the way at Wimbledon?
The Croatian has lived much of her tennis career somewhat on the periphery, consistently struggling to break through to the latter stages of a major.
However, Vekic’s historic run at Wimbledon sits her 20th in the Live WTA rankings, just one place behind her career-best of 19th which she achieved in November 2019.
The Croatian may in several ways take inspiration from last year’s champion, Marketa Vondrousova who became the first unseeded player to win the women’s singles final.
With the three former grand slam champions Elena Rybakina, Jelena Ostapenko, and Barbora Krejcikova, all situated in the other half of the draw, only one could make the final.
Vekic will certainly hope history might repeat itself and with the women’s draw still incredibly open, she’s only four sets away from a truly remarkable achievement.
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