Donna Vekic was tearful in the third set against Jasmine Paolini at the 2024 Wimbledon Championships, and it wasn't just because she lost the match.
The Croatian player was close to making the Wimbledon final against all odds. While Vekic was always considered a talented player who does well on grass, she wasn't considered to be one of the favorites at the grass-court major this year.
She led against Paolini after the opening set, but the relentless Italian never gave up and wore down the Croatian, beating her in three sets. It was a painful loss for Vekic, quite literally, as she admitted after the match.
"I thought I was going to die in the third set. I had so much pain in my arm, in my leg. It was not easy out there, but I will recover. I was more crying because I had so much pain, I didn’t know how I could keep playing."
"But somehow, I don’t know… It was a tough, tough match. I believed that I could win until the end. She played some amazing tennis. All congrats to her. She definitely deserved it."
The match was brutal because it ended up being the longest women's Wimbledon semi-final match. Both didn't want to give up, highlighted by a very close match tie-breaker which finished 10-8 for Paolini.
Vekic was obviously disappointed after the match, but her team picked her up, telling her she could be proud of herself, especially since it was her first career semi-final at a Grand Slam.
"My team tells me that I can be proud of myself. It’s tough right now. It’s really tough. For sure I will need to take couple of days to see everything. I don’t know, it’s tough to be positive right now. It was so close. I had a lot of chances."
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