{"id":266525,"date":"2026-06-14T16:01:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T16:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/266525\/"},"modified":"2026-06-14T16:01:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T16:01:08","slug":"lucky-loser-vekic-beats-raducanu-to-rule-queens-club-tennis-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/266525\/","title":{"rendered":"Lucky Loser Vekic Beats Raducanu to Rule Queen\u2019s Club \u2013 Tennis Now"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Richard Pagliaro | Sunday, June 14, 2026
Photo credit: Adam Davy\/PA Sport\/Getty<\/p>\n

Illness and fatigue nearly struck down Donna Vekic last week.<\/p>\n

Today, Vekic produced a powerful panacea at Queen\u2019s Club.<\/p>\n

Lucky loser Vekic converted her fifth championship point defeating home hero Emma Raducanu 6-0, 7-6(6) to win her fifth career championship on the historic lawns of Queen\u2019s Club.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It is Vekic\u2019s first Tour-level title in three years and came after fifth-seeded Marta Kostyuk withdrew last week.<\/p>\n

Vekic, who was feeling so ill last Monday she didn\u2019t think she could compete, gained main-draw entry on Tuesday. Five days later she made history as the first lucky loser to win Queen\u2019s Club.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really grateful that I got another opportunity to play, because I was really excited for the first tournament on grass,\u201d Vekic said. \u201cLoved being back in London, but then I got sick that weekend, and I was really, really upset because then having to play two matches on Sunday as well, it was too much.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew I was the first Lucky Loser, but on Monday, I was feeling so bad, I was like, Please, I don\u2019t want anyone to pull out today. Then Tuesday I woke up and was feeling better and I was like I feel it\u2019s coming today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Embed from Getty Images<\/a> <\/p>\n

Contesting her first final since the 2024 Olympic gold-medal match in Paris when she fell to Zheng Qinwen, Vekic beat three British players, including scoring back-to-back wins over Katie Boulter and Raducanu to take the title.<\/p>\n

When Raducanu\u2019s final shot sailed long, Vekic dropped to her knees with joy then rose, putting her hand over her heart.<\/p>\n

A victorious Vekic signed the court-side camera lens \u201cCrazy Queen\u201d with a heart symbolizing this wild ride to her fifth championship.<\/p>\n

At the outset, the 29-year-old Croatian overpowered Raducanu rolling through seven straight games for a 6-0, 1-0 lead.<\/p>\n

Playing for her first title since she won the 2021 US Open becoming the first qualifier\u2014male or female\u2014to win a Grand Slam singles title, Raducanu reset.<\/p>\n

Mixing the depth and angle of her drives, Raducanu raced through five of the next six games snatching a 5-2 second-set lead. Though Raducanu served for the set at 5-4 and had two set points, she could not close. Raducanu scattered a drop shot as Vekic broke back to level at 5-all.<\/p>\n

Serving at 5-6, Raducanu roped a forehand to save championship point, dodged a second championship point when Vekic netted a return then saved a third championship point cracking an 82 mile-an-hour forehand winner.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Raducanu rapped deep backhands holding to force the tiebreaker.<\/p>\n

Level at 5-all in the breaker, Vekic hit a forcing forehand drawing a wide lob for a fourth championship point. Raducanu hit a dangerous return down the line but slipped giving Vekic an open look at a wide expanse of court, but the Croatian netted her reply and it was 6-all.<\/p>\n

Queen\u2019s Club fans were roaring exhorting hometown favorite Raducanu, but Vekic muted fans sliding a winner right off the sideline that left Raducanu staring at the spot as if haunted by that strike.<\/p>\n

On her fifth championship point, Vekic finally closed as a crackling 15-shot exchanged ended with Raducanu sailing a diagonal forehand long.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Richard Pagliaro | Sunday, June 14, 2026Photo credit: Adam Davy\/PA Sport\/Getty Illness and fatigue nearly struck down…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":255644,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-266525","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\/266525","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=266525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}