Croatia's best female tennis player, Donna Vekic, on Saturday won a silver medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics, where in the final match of the women's singles she was defeated 6-2, 6-3 by Zheng Qinwen of China, ranked world No. 7 by the Women's Tennis Association.

21-year-old Zheng has thus become the first Chinese female tennis player to win an Olympic medal in the women’s singles, bagging the gold already on her debut. Before her, Li Ting and Sun Tiantian became Olympic winners in Athens in 2004 in the women’s pairs.

This was the second time 28-year-old Vekic, a native of Osijek, took part in the Olympics. She is the first Croatian female tennis player to win an Olympic medal since 1988, when tennis again became a full medal sport at the Summer Olympics. Four years before, at the Los Angeles Olympics, Sabrina Goles of Zagreb won a silver medal, losing to German Steffi Graf in the finals, but at the time tennis had the status of demonstration sport.

Vekic’s medal is the sixth medal won by Croatian tennis players. In 1992 Goran Ivanišević won the bronze in Barcelona in the men’s singles and another bronze with Goran Prpić in the men’s pairs. Mario Ancic and Ivan Ljubicic won the bronze in the men’s pairs in Athens in 2004 while Nikola Mektic and Mate Pavic won the gold in Tokyo in 2021 by beating compatriots Marin Cili c and Ivan Dodig.