A quite unexpectedly expected success at the WTA 500 in San Diego, 2022

  • Tennis

"When you want something badly enough, the whole universe conspires for you to get it", said the famous Paulo Coelho, and Donna Vekić proved it with a series of victories at the WTA 500 tournament in San Diego in October 2022.

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"When you want something badly enough, the whole universe conspires for you to get it", said the famous Paulo Coelho, and Donna Vekić proved it with a series of victories at the WTA 500 tournament in San Diego in October 2022.

 

This is definitely not just a flash in Donna's tennis career, because first of all she had to reach the tournament’s final which this year was her tenth overall in her career so far (of which she has won three WTA titles). Furthermore, her successful playing in all of the 7 matches within 8 days confirms this. Eventually, she came face to face with the world's number one female tennis player and challenged her.

 

Additionally, Donna has been playing tennis since she was six years old and she became the WTA TOP 100 tennis players in the world when she was 16 years old. Since then, she continued to swim successfully in the challenging waters among the selected tennis players of the world and not only to keep her place among the top 100 selected, but breaking into the top 50, all the way to 19th place (in 2019). She had to constantly prove herself from year to year, from season to season. And Donna certainly proved her intention with this match in San Diego - when you want something badly enough, the whole universe will conspire for you to get it.

After ups and downs, bad and good seasons...Donna is back, stronger than ever, overcoming major knee surgery in early 2021 that dropped her towards the bottom of the top 100 rank, even behind the line...and now Donna is pushing her way forward again, proving that defeats only make her stronger - not setting her back. Some would say that it goes with a certain maturity or growing up, some would say that wisdom comes with the age, but there were also adjustments in the style of playing tennis, smarter use of Donna's resources and talents etc., and certainly a lot of hard work. Because success is only 10% of talent and 90% of work. If you work and give 110% of yourself, the results will be achieved 100%.

 

"I am very happy to be playing at this level again. I've said before that I wasn't sure if I'd ever be able to play like this again after knee surgery last year. However, ending the season in such a strong way gives me great motivation to make good preparations and then be even better in the next season", said Donna in the media.

 

Seven matches in eight days

 

In order to reach the finals at one of the more important WTA 500 tournaments, Donna had to beat Mandlik and Davis in the qualifying matches, then the Greek Maria Sakkari (WTA – 7th) in the first round, the Czech Karolina Pliskova (WTA – 22nd) in the second round, Belarusian Arina Sabalenko (WTA – 5th) in the quarterfinals and American Danielle Collins (WTA – 19th) in the semifinals – all in eight days.

With the fact that she played with Danielle Collins for two days due to weather problems, and the match before that with Arina Sabalenko which was equally hard. Donna played the finals with Polish Iga Šwiatek (WTA – 1st) just a few hours after the tournament with Collins ended, therefore, practically without adequate rest. And she managed to win one of the three sets that was won by the world's number one tennis player, for whom this was her 64th victory in this season in which she experienced only eight defeats.

 

It was not easy to beat all the top tennis players in the world in a row. Until then, Pliskova had beaten Donna six times, only last year it was three times. But this match ended in Donna's favour with a score of 6:2 and 6:3.

According to Donna, the match in the quarterfinals with Arina Sabalenko was one of her five most difficult matches in her career so far, but at the same time it was her fifth victory out of six matches between these two tennis players. Donna won Sabalenko with a score of 6:4, 6:7 (5), 6:1 after two hours and 37 minutes of play. The semi-finals with Collins lasted two days due to a rain break which extended the play to total of three hours and four minutes, but also the result was in Donna's favour 6:4, 4:6, 7:6 (2).

 

It should also be taken into account that Šwiatek played only four matches before the finals, that is, three less than Vekić which certainly did not put them in equal starting positions in the finals. But even though Donna did not win her fourth WTA title with this tournament, it brought her progress in the WTA rankings. With the WTA - the 77th position of female tennis players in the world, Donna once again entered the top 50, at the 47th position precisely. But what is even more important, this tournament was a confirmation for Donna that despite the falls (in the literal sense due to the knee injury), she knows and can “swim” among the world's best female tennis players. In fact, Donna loves a big scene, and with all that energy and motivation she has, she can “swim even a lot more”.

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