October 31, 2021 - What a day for Croatian tennis. After Marin Čilić celebrated at the St. Petersburg Open, Donna Vekić won the Courmayeur Ladies Open title 7:6 (3), 6:2! 

Croatian tennis player Donna Vekić fought for her third WTA title today in Courmayeur, Italy, against 18-year-old Dane Clara Tauson.

At the start of the match, neither player managed to keep their serve in the first four games. After Tauson broke at the opening of the first set and took the 1:0 lead, Vekić retaliated, but Tauson then took the lead at 2:1. Immediately in the next game, Vekić took the 3:2 lead, and then with another break led 5:2.

The young Danish player then won her serve for the first time and reduced the score to 5:3. Vekić served for the first set and had two set points, but Tauson returned, used the second break point, and reached 4:5. The first set was then decided in a tie-break. Donna furiously started the 13th game, took a 6:0 lead, then lost three points in a row, but served at 7:3 to win the first set.

In the second set, both tennis players had three chances to break, but Vekić used two chances, while Tauson did not realize any of her chances. Vekić then went on to win the second set 6:2!

The Osijek native reached the ninth WTA final of her career and the first after June 2019 in Nottingham. She did not lose a single set in Courmayeur, and in the semifinal, she left only two games to the 56th-best tennis player in the world, Italian Jasmine Paolini (6:2, 6:0).

Donna Vekić won her last of the two titles in 2017 in Nottingham. Prior to that, in 2014, she celebrated in Kuala Lumpur. This was the third final this year for Tauson, in which she had won two titles, in Lyon and Luxembourg.

Source: HRT

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October 31, 2021 - Continuing the excellent Croatian tennis news, Osijek's Donna Vekić has advanced to the Courmayeur Ladies Open final!

After a season full of problems, primarily due to right knee surgery in February, which saw her off the court for more than three months, Donna Vekić reached the ninth WTA Tour final of her career in her fairytale tennis season (only Iva Majoli played more than this Croatian tennis player - 17).

In the Courmayeur semifinal, the Osijek native beat Italian tennis player Jasmine Paolini (WTA 56) 6:2, 6:0 in 64 minutes and thus retaliated for losing (6:7, 2:6) in their only mutual meeting before in the Cincinnati qualifiers this summer, reports Jutarnji List.

Paolini is not an easy rival. This has been the best year in her career, decorated with titles at the Ladies Open in Bol (125K) and Portorož (WTA 250), but she was utterly powerless against Donna. 

Vekić opened with 3:0, Paolini came close to 3:2 but didn't have enough. A miraculous series of nine games by the 25-year-old from Osijek followed. Vekić scored six aces with five double faults, but she did the greatest damage to the Italian with her return. She reduced Paolini to a first-serve percentage of 41 percent and a second-serve percentage of 38 percent. 

In her ninth final, Donna will play against 18-year-old Clare Tauson (WTA 49), who defeated Ludmila Samsonova 4:6, 7:6 (8), 6:4, but what the result does not reveal is that the young Dane saved as many as five match points in the tie-break of the second set - and four consecutive as the Russian was up 6:2. Tauson was the best junior globally, and her rise in the professional tennis world was rapid.  This year she won Lyon from the qualifiers, as well as Luxembourg.

This will be the first match between Donna and Clare. Vekić entered the tournament from 97th place on the ranking list, and with the final, she will jump about twenty places. If she wins, she will advance another ten.

Donna was a two-time Tour winner, in Kuala Lumpur in 2014 and Nottingham three years later and lost six finals (Tashkent 2012, 2015, Birmingham 2013, Washington 2018, St. Petersburg, Nottingham 2019).

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