Inside Donna Vekic’s winning partnership with coach Pam Shriver

Their celebrated collaboration, like so many things in life, came about as a mere slice of happenstance. In retrospect, the relationship between Hall of Famer Pam Shriver and Donna Vekic seems like destiny.

Shriver, who lives in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, is one of the Hologic WTA tour’s most visible advocates for safeguarding athletes from predatory coaches. In October of 2022, she drove down to the San Diego Open to discuss the topic with Vekic, a member of the player council.

“I watched her beat Lauren Davis in the last round of qualifying,” Shriver recently said. “I had some thoughts, and I asked her if she was open to some on-court input.

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“And then she won four unbelievable matches in a row. I flipped around my schedule, spending the night and sometimes commuting. At one point during the semifinals against Danielle Collins, I got a warning because I wasn’t in the coaches’ box.”

Vekic, who was ranked No.77 coming into the WTA 500 event, defeated Maria Sakkari, Karolina Pliskova, Aryna Sabalenka and Collins — before falling in a three-set final to World No.1 Iga Swiatek. Ten days after San Diego, Vekic was hitting balls on Shriver’s home court, a ritual they’ve repeated several times. Vekic, who lives in Monte Carlo, also spends time in Croatia.

While Nikola Horvat is Vekic’s day-to-day coach, Shriver’s experience and powers of observation have provided her with an extra layer of support. Call her a coaching consultant. Shriver has a deep resume from which to draw. Although she’s known as a doubles champion, with 22 major titles, she also won 21 singles titles, 600-plus matches and rose as high as No.3 in an era dominated by Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert.

After reaching the semifinals at Wimbledon, you could see Vekic’s growth at the Paris Olympics, where the 28-year-old from Croatia took the silver medal. She defeated Bianca Andreescu, No.3 seed Coco Gauff, No.12 Marta Kostyuk and Anna Karolina Schmiedlova in the semifinals. Zheng Qinwen was a 6-2, 6-3 winner in the gold-medal match, but Vekic became the first Croatian woman to win a tennis medal at the Olympics.

Vekic’s career-high ranking of No.19 came nearly five years ago, and she enters this week’s Cincinnati Open at No.21. The Olympics don’t offer rankings points, but if they gave the equivalent of a WTA 1000, Vekic would be sitting at No.14. That’s how far she’s come.

And to think it was only a few months ago she told Horvat that she was thinking of quitting tennis. Those sentiments surfaced two years earlier, after a difficult knee surgery, and this spring she came close to leaving the game. Vekic’s energy was down, and she lacked motivation to practice, but Horvat talked her out of it.

With a finals appearance in Bad Homburg, a semifinal at Wimbledon and a run to the Olympics final, she’s now won 13 of 16 matches.

Shriver, watching from home, said Vekic looked tired in Paris playing her sixth match in seven days.

“Her level dropped a bit, but Zheng played great,” said Shriver, a gold medalist in doubles in Seoul 1988 with Zina Garrison. “She went in knowing she was going to either get the gold or silver. I know what it feels like to have a gold medal as part of your intro, to be honest. Being an Olympian is cool, being a medalist is cooler.

“Donna’s last three tournaments have proved she can be a Top 5 player in the world. What I want to do is help her keep that same mentality, standard of play, discipline, dedication because I know that can be her level — it’s just been hard to maintain it.”

Part of the reason is Shriver’s busy schedule. Not only is she an analyst for ESPN, but she has three children — George is 20, while twins Kaitlin and Sam are 18. When she was discussing joining Vekic’s team, she imagined she’d be spending less time with her kids, but it hasn’t always worked out that way. Their activities, including high school graduation, meant that Shriver couldn’t be with Vekic for the Asia swing, this year’s clay season or the Olympics.

But she’ll be in Cincinnati and at the US Open, where she’ll join two other coach/commentators for ESPN — Brad Gilbert works with Coco Gauff and Darren Cahill coaches Jannik Sinner.

What, in Shriver’s mind, was missing from Vekic’s game?

“Belief,” Shriver said. “Just being on the serve, being more committed to hitting the target, relying on your serve for free points. I really felt she had the size, the athleticism, the racquet-head speed to be a top four server on the tour. She’s not there yet, but she’s getting close.”

Shriver would also like to see Vekic continue to hone her mental game and reports that it’s starting to come together. She believes Vekic has the ability to become an elite player.

“We all know at 28, she’s more than halfway through a long career,” Shriver said. “But she’s still in her prime. Having the belief week in, week out that you can contend for titles. To be a Top 10, Top 5 you have to be able to rinse and repeat. To do it time and time again. That’s a new skill to learn.

“I feel like this is an interesting inflection point because she’s had three tournaments in a row. Can’t wait to see how Cincinnati, Monterrey and the US Open go.”