By Martyn Herman<\/p>\n
LONDON, June 13 (Reuters) \u2013 Croatia\u2019s Donna Vekic revived memories of her deep run at Wimbledon two years ago when she thrashed Britain\u2019s Katie Boulter to reach the Queen\u2019s Club Championships semi-finals on \u200bSaturday.<\/p>\n
Vekic dropped only six points on serve in a 6-1 6-3 victory \u200cagainst wildcard Boulter who looked flat after her stunning win against world number two Elena Rybakina on Friday.<\/p>\n
The 29-year-old Vekic will contest her first Tour-level final since she reached the Paris Olympics final in 2024.<\/p>\n
She will face either American teenage sensation Iva Jovic or Britain\u2019s former \u200cU.S. \u200bOpen winner Emma Raducanu.<\/p>\n
Raducanu reached the semi-finals earlier in \u2060the day when she beat \u2060Uzbekistan\u2019s Kamilla Rakhimova 6-3 7-5 despite a second-set injury scare when she needed attention to her left thigh.<\/p>\n
The vastly-experienced Vekic has seen her ranking drop to 76, three places below Boulter, after a tough season and was \u200bactually beaten here in the final round of qualifying.<\/p>\n
Marta Kostyuk\u2019s withdrawal with an injury meant Vekic got her chance in the draw as a lucky \u2060loser and she has taken full advantage of \u2060her reprieve with a stunning run to the final, including \u200bdowning former world number one Karolina Pliskova.<\/p>\n
She played the villain role to perfection on \u200bthe Andy Murray Arena, silencing the pro-Boulter crowd with an exhibition \u200cof precision serving and sweetly-struck baseline winners.<\/p>\n
Afterwards she described London as her second home, having spent time as a teenager training in the capital with British coach David Felgate, with whom she has teamed up again for the British grasscourt season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI \u2060have been improving with each match and that\u2019s usually how it goes on grass, the more time you spend on it the better you get,\u201d Vekic, who lost \u2060to Jasmine Paolini in \u200cWimbledon\u2019s longest-ever women\u2019s singles semi-final in 2024, said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love \u2060this surface, I love this city. I\u2019m really happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
She has \u200bnow beaten \u200ctwo Britons en route to the final, having accounted \u200bfor teenager \u2060Mika Stojsavljevic in the first round, and will have no fear if Raducanu is waiting for her in Sunday\u2019s showdown. Although Raducanu first has the formidable task of beating the 18-year-old Jovic.<\/p>\n
Jovic beat fellow American and second seed Amanda Anisimova on Friday to reach her fourth semi-final this year.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Martyn Herman, Editing by Louise \u200bHeavens and Clare Fallon)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Martyn Herman LONDON, June 13 (Reuters) \u2013 Croatia\u2019s Donna Vekic revived memories of her deep run at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265695,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-265779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}