A year after semifinal finish, can Donna Vekic make more magic at Wimbledon?

“Protect Your Craft” is the name that Canadian outerwear brand Mackage has given its new series of athlete-centered clothing lines. The goal with these collections, it says, is to “explore the mindset and discipline behind world-class performance—and the athletes who live it.”

Based on name recognition, it might come as a surprise that the second of those lines, which was introduced this spring, features Donna Vekic. The 28-year-old, 22nd-ranked native of Osijek, Croatia, is not the biggest star in tennis. But if you dig a little deeper into her career journey, the slogan begins to make sense for her.

Vekic started as a prodigy. She won the prestigious junior Orange Bowl and turned pro at 16. But after making an early splash on tour, she failed to fulfill her seemingly sky-high potential. Later, knee surgery made her contemplate retirement in her mid-20s. Rather than give in to difficulty and disappointment, though, she put her head down and committed to taking the long road back up the rankings. Seven years after her debut, she cracked the Top 20. In 2024, she did it again. To make it there, she had to improve and refine every part of her game.

Any fan who has passed by the practice courts at a pro tournament has likely seen Vekic there, pounding her ground strokes crosscourt and down the line, over and over. While they may never be the most fluid in the sport, from up close you can feel the weight she gets behind those shots, and see the accuracy that she has attained after so many reps. Thirteen years, and many thousands of practice swings, into her career, “protecting my craft” resonates with her.

“It means I’ve been working my whole life on my shots, on perfecting my shots,” Vekic says. “My craft is my shots and my game on court.”

“Someone asks you, ‘How are you feeling, are you ready for the next tournament?’ It’s not something I’ve been working on the last week or a month. It’s something you’ve been working on your whole life.”

After winning the [Olympic] medal in Paris, I was, like, 'OK, now I feel a lot more relaxed; if I never ever win anything again, it’s fine.' Donna Vekic

In 2022, Vekic added Pam Shriver—another teen prodigy who never won a singles major, but who enjoyed a long and successful career—to her team. In 2024, the years of work began to pay off in ways that even Vekic might not have imagined possible.

At Wimbledon, she reached her first Grand Slam semifinal in her 43rd try. While she lost that semi to Jasmine Paolini, their classic contest, which mesmerized the Centre Court crowd for nearly three hours, felt like an overdue moment in the sun for the veteran. It also included the shot that has stayed with me the longest from last year’s Wimbledon.

Read more: Donna Vekic takes summer renaissance to Olympic podium

Down a match point late in the third set, Vekic, who was exhausted by this stage, bolted forward and somehow hooked a forehand into corner for a winner. Afterward, she stumbled toward the net, gasping for air and looking as if she might collapse on the spot. Instead of falling over, she gathered herself and pushed on for another half hour before finally succumbing in a climactic third-set tiebreaker.

Later, Vekic was asked if she felt “any fatigue at all during the match.”

“Fatigue,” according to her, was an understatement.

“I mean, I thought I was going to die in the third set,” she said.

Vekic survived, and continued to thrive. A month later, she topped her Wimbledon result by bringing home a silver medal in singles from the Paris Olympics. To get it, she beat two US Open champions, Bianca Andreescu and Coco Gauff, and squeaked past Marta Kostyuk 10-8 in a third-set tiebreaker.

“After Wimbledon…I was in Croatia, and everyone was talking about it,” Vekic said of her mindset last summer. “It made me hungry to do well at the Olympics. It really motivated me.”

“Then after winning the medal in Paris, I was, like, ‘OK, now I feel a lot more relaxed; if I never ever win anything again, it’s fine,’” she continued, half-joking.

A year later, as Vekic returns to London, we may wonder: Was her dream summer of 2024 a sign of bigger things to come, or a hard-earned career peak? She’s 9-16 this season, and last week she and Shriver parted ways. Vekic’s ranking hasn’t suffered much yet, but that would change with an early loss at Wimbledon.

Still, the weekly grind didn’t seem to be dragging her down when I talked to her before Roland Garros last month. A member of the WTA Player Council—she represents players ranked 21 to 50—and someone who has a lot of friends on tour, Vekic has made the sport her life.

“It just feels really good to be back in Paris,” she said of the city where she won Olympic silver. “It’s always fun and it has a different vibe. You know, the city of love, croissants, and good food.”

Vekic’s run in Paris ended early, as have her tournaments in the lead-up to Wimbledon. But she says her success at the Games has given her a deeper-seated sense of self-belief.

When my serve is working, everything else is working. That’s always one of my main assets, and it makes my life a lot easier in the rallies. If I have a good serve, the points over pretty fast. Donna Vekic

“After winning the medal, it was like a little bit of pressure has come off,” she says, “because I’ve achieved one of my dreams that I’ve had since I started playing tennis.”

“But then it showed me how close I am to winning big titles. It definitely gave me a lot of motivation to keep pushing.”

What’s the difference between 2024 and 2025? For Vekic, it comes down to one shot.

“When my serve is working, everything else is working,” she says. “That’s always one of my main assets, and it makes my life a lot easier in the rallies. If I have a good serve, the points over pretty fast.”

While Vekic retains her belief in her game and her future, she also hints that retirement may not be that far off. Asked if she can see herself on tour for a lot longer, she says, flatly, “No.”

“Not for much longer, but I still have a bit left in me. As long as I’m healthy, that’s the most important thing.”

Vekic doesn’t seem like a player who will flounder in search of a second act. She has had a long-running interest in business. Along with Mackage, she has her own line of activewear, DonnaSport; a home fragrance brand, DNNA, that she started during the pandemic; and a partnership with L’Oreal. She also helped found the Premier Tennis Show, a charity exhibition held in her hometown of Osijek.

“I’ve definitely become more business-minded over the years,” says Vekic, who turns 29 this weekend. “I’ve started thinking about what I want to build beyond the sport, because, you know, as a tennis career comes to an end, another one starts.”

Vekic’s Mackage line extends a series of recent connections between high-end brands and tennis. A.P.C. has partnered with ASICS, and Miu Miu with New Balance. Vekic says it was “love at first sight” with her Protect Your Craft outerwear line, which is her go-to for “cazsh”—as in casual—wear.

“It’s versatile, practical, innovative,” she says. “They protect you from all kinds of weather.”

“It’s always two things,” Vekic says when it come to her aesthetic: “To be elegant, but also to be comfortable.”

Will we see more of Donna Vekic the tennis player, or the businesswoman, in the coming months and years? We may start finding out next week at Wimbledon.