5 WTA Titles That Map Donna Vekic's 12 Years on Tour

2014: Kuala Lumpur, the teenager who outlasted the top seed

Vekic won her first WTA title at 17, at the Malaysian Open in Kuala Lumpur, beating top-seeded Dominika Cibulkova 5-7, 7-5, 7-6(4) in a full three-set fight. It was an eye-catching result for a player who had turned professional only two years earlier. The win also set a pattern that would repeat across her career: most of her titles have come from beating players ranked well above her, not from cruising through a favorable draw.

2017: Nottingham, three sets against Johanna Konta

Three years passed before her second title, at the Nottingham Open on English grass, where she beat British No. 1 Johanna Konta 2-6, 7-6(7-3), 7-5, saving her best tennis for a deciding set against the tournament's most decorated home player. Grass turned out to be the surface tying her career together. Two of her five titles, including this one, came on it, and so did her best Grand Slam result, the Wimbledon semifinal seven years later. Her other three titles are split between hard courts and clay, in Kuala Lumpur, the Italian Alps and Mexico. None of them share grass's connecting thread.

2021: Courmayeur, a title won in the middle of an injury fight

Vekic's third title arrived in the middle of a real physical struggle. She had knee surgery after the 2021 Australian Open, then beat Clara Tauson 7-6(7-3), 6-2 that October to win the Courmayeur Ladies Open in the Italian Alps without dropping a set. I could not find a more specific surgery date than that in the coverage I checked, so I've left it at what was actually reported. The trophy did not end the knee trouble, either. Recurring issues followed her for almost two more years, and by her own account she thought seriously about whether to keep playing at all before her next title finally showed up.

2023: Monterrey, the comeback title

In early March 2023, she beat top-seeded Caroline Garcia 6-4, 3-6, 7-5 to win the Monterrey Open in Mexico, a two-hour, thirty-minute final and her first title since Courmayeur. It was also, by her own account, a win she had genuinely doubted would ever come. The form held. It made the Wimbledon semifinal and Olympic final that followed the next year look less like a shock and more like a continuation.

2026: Queen's Club, the one nobody saw coming

Her fifth title, in June 2026, is the one that makes the whole list worth revisiting. Vekic lost in the final round of qualifying at the HSBC Championships at Queen's Club. She entered the main draw anyway, as a lucky loser, once Marta Kostyuk withdrew. Then she won the whole tournament, beating home favorite Emma Raducanu 6-0, 7-6(6) in the final. It was her first WTA 500-level title, her first title of any kind since Monterrey three years earlier, and only the seventh time since 1980 that any lucky loser has won a WTA title.

Line the five up and a shape appears that a single ranking number never shows: a teenager who upset a top seed, an injury that interrupted everything, a three-year wait, and a trophy she nearly didn't get to play for. We think that shape explains her career better than this week's first-round loss in Singapore ever could.