Donna Vekić convincingly stopped Katie Boulter and secured the Queen's Club final
Donna Vekić reached the final of the WTA 500 HSBC Championships at London's Queen's Club after a convincing 6:1, 6:3 victory over Katie Boulter in the semifinal played on Saturday, 13 June 2026. The Croatian tennis player, who entered the main draw as a lucky loser, made the best possible use of her second chance and, with dominance on serve, halted the surge of the home representative. According to the organizer's report, Vekić lost only six points behind her own serve during the entire match, which says enough about the level of control she had from the opening games to the final point. Boulter came into London with the best win of her career behind her, against world No. 2 Elena Rybakina, but in the semifinal she failed to find a solution for the clean shots, rhythm and pressure imposed by Vekić. With this victory, Vekić secured her first final at the highest level since the battle for Olympic gold in Paris in 2024, and on Sunday, 14 June, she will play for the title against Emma Raducanu.
The match that Vekić directed already in the first set
The grass-court semifinal at Queen's Club very quickly took a clear direction. According to the official LTA report, Vekić opened the match by winning the first three games and immediately showed that Boulter would not get much time to settle into rhythm. With another break at 4:1, she further strengthened her lead, and she closed the first set after half an hour with an unreturnable serve. In such a development of the match, the combination of the first shot and the aggressive first following shot was especially important, because Vekić shortened the rallies and denied her opponent the possibility of relying on crowd support and longer points. Boulter tried to change the tempo and prolong the exchanges, but the Croatian tennis player did not allow the set to turn into an uncertain battle in which the home player could draw extra energy from the stands.
The second set was more even in terms of the score, but not open enough for Boulter to seriously threaten Vekić's progress. In the third game of the second set, the British tennis player saved two break points, but on the third she made a forehand error and surrendered serve again. That moment proved crucial because Vekić continued to hold her opening shot securely, while Boulter increasingly played under pressure to take risks in almost every service game. In the closing stages, Boulter saved the first match point with a powerful cross-court forehand winner, but on the very next attempt Vekić finished the match with a backhand down the line. Such an ending summed up the whole semifinal well: Boulter fought, but Vekić had the more precise shot and the clearer plan in the most important moments.
Serve and attack decided the semifinal
After the match, the organizer highlighted three statistical indicators that explain the difference on the court. According to the LTA, Vekić won all the points in which she was in an attacking position, while the tournament average in such situations was significantly lower. Her serve quality was rated 8.5 out of 10, with the average speed of her first serve reaching 109 miles per hour, or about 175 kilometers per hour. For comparison, the tournament average cited by the organizer was 98 miles per hour, approximately 158 kilometers per hour. When such a serve is combined with quick movement toward the baseline and early seizure of the initiative, the grass surface further rewards the player who dictates the direction of the point first.
In this match, Vekić rarely entered a defensive pattern. She did not rely only on the power of her shots, but precisely opened the court and kept the ball low enough that Boulter could hardly attack from a stable position. This was especially visible on the second shot after the serve, where Vekić often immediately changed direction and forced her opponent to move toward the sidelines. In previous rounds, Boulter had managed to survive periods of pressure, especially against Rybakina, but against Vekić she did not get enough chances for a comeback. According to the official statistics published by the LTA, only six lost points behind serve left Boulter without any real room to create continuous pressure on return.
The lucky loser's path to the final
Donna Vekić's story at Queen's Club is additionally unusual because her tournament could have ended already in qualifying. According to the WTA and the LTA, she entered the main draw as a replacement after Marta Kostyuk withdrew due to a right ankle injury. Before the call, Vekić was training at the National Tennis Centre in Roehampton, after which she received a place in the main tournament and had to switch quickly to Queen's Club for her first match. Such an entry into a tournament often means that a player does not have much time to adjust, but in this case it turned into an opportunity that grew larger from round to round. Already in her first appearance, Vekić defeated British teenager Mika Stojsavljević, and then continued to build her game on a surface that has traditionally suited her.
In the further part of the tournament, according to the LTA's daily reports, Vekić defeated Marie Bouzková and former world No. 1 Karolína Plíšková before outplaying Boulter in the semifinal. The victory over Plíšková is especially important because she is a player with an extremely strong serve and great experience on grass. Vekić won that match in three sets, 6:4, 4:6, 6:3, thereby showing that her London result was not merely a consequence of a favorable draw, but also of a gradual rise in form. In a statement after the semifinal, according to the LTA, she emphasized that more time on grass helps her play better and better, which was clearly visible in the way she reduced the number of weak periods against Boulter. From the status of a player who had fallen in qualifying to the final of a WTA 500 tournament, she traveled a path that rarely happens without a high level of mental adjustment.
Boulter ended a strong week, but without the energy for another turnaround
Katie Boulter entered the semifinal after an emotionally and physically demanding Friday, 12 June, when she achieved the biggest win of her career by defeating the top seed and world No. 2 Elena Rybakina 7:5, 2:6, 6:4. According to the LTA, in that match she saved 12 of 14 break points, and the victory took her to her first semifinal at the HSBC Championships. Before that, in London she defeated Leylah Fernandez and Jaqueline Cristian, making her week one of her most successful grass-court appearances in recent times. Still, the very short gap between the major quarterfinal triumph and the semifinal proved to be a heavy burden. After the defeat, Boulter admitted that Vekić had played a very high-quality match and had not given her much room to get into the points.
The British tennis player did not look for excuses, but she clearly indicated that the physical toll from the previous day had consequences. According to the LTA, she said that her physical readiness in the semifinal was not enough to stay in the rallies at the level needed against Vekić. Such an assessment matches what was seen on the court: Boulter was late to several key balls, less often managed to seize the initiative, and had to look for quick points more frequently. Despite the defeat, her London performance remains important because she reached the semifinal against a very strong sequence of opponents. According to the LTA, the result should also bring her a significant move in the live rankings, although the official order will be confirmed only after the end of the tournament week.
The final against Emma Raducanu opens a new story
In the final, scheduled for Sunday, 14 June, at 13:30 local time, Vekić will play against Emma Raducanu. According to the LTA, it will be their first meeting on the WTA Tour. Raducanu reached the final after playing two matches on the same day: first she beat Kamilla Rakhimova 6:3, 7:5 in the quarterfinal, and then in the semifinal defeated the sixth seed Iva Jović 6:2, 6:2. The organizer states that Raducanu had not lost a set in the week leading up to the final, giving the final additional competitive weight. On the other hand, Vekić enters the closing match with a winning streak that arose from an unexpected opportunity and with a game that looked the cleanest since the start of the tournament in the semifinal.
In its preview of the final, the LTA states that Raducanu is currently the world No. 42 and Vekić No. 76, but the context of their rivalry cannot be reduced only to ranking. In London, Raducanu is seeking her first title since the 2021 US Open and her first title on grass, while Vekić is chasing her first WTA 500 trophy in her fifth final at that level. For Vekić, the Queen's Club final is also an opportunity to confirm the continuity of good results on grass, a surface on which she has already won Nottingham and played the final stages of major tournaments. Raducanu will have strong crowd support, but Vekić showed against Boulter that she can cope with the home atmosphere and the rhythm carried by London's center of attention. The final outcome will depend primarily on whether Vekić can maintain the same level of serving and early point-taking that opened the door to the final for her.
Queen's Club once again an important stop for women's tennis
The HSBC Championships at Queen's Club is one of the best-known grass-court tournaments in the tennis calendar. According to the WTA, the London tournament in 2026 is being played from 8 to 14 June as a WTA 500 grass-court event, with a singles draw of 28 players and a total financial commitment of 1.915 million dollars. The organizer, the LTA, states that the broader edition of the HSBC Championships is scheduled from 6 to 21 June, with the women's main tournament played in the first week and the men's ATP 500 section in the second week. The WTA also emphasizes that the women's tournament returned to Queen's Club at WTA 500 level after more than 50 years, thereby giving the London grass-court season an important women's stop again before Wimbledon. In that context, Vekić's entry into the final also has broader significance because it comes at a tournament that is only now rebuilding its modern women's identity.
Queen's Club, located in West Kensington, has long been associated with preparations for Wimbledon and with tennis players who seek an early rhythm on grass after the end of the clay-court part of the season. The return of the women's tournament in 2025 marked an important change in the structure of the British grass-court season, and the 2026 edition was further strengthened by a strong draw and a large presence of home players. The LTA states that Raducanu and Boulter reached the semifinals of the same WTA 500 tournament, which was a rare result for British tennis since Eastbourne in 2017. Still, Vekić prevented an all-home final and showed that experience on grass can often overpower the wave of the crowd and short-term momentum. That is exactly why her victory over Boulter is not just progress to another final, but also confirmation that on this surface she is still a player who must be counted among the most dangerous.
Vekić's grass-court pedigree and return to the final stages
According to her official WTA profile, Donna Vekić has four WTA singles titles in her career, including the grass-court title in Nottingham in 2017. The WTA also states that in 2024 she achieved her best Grand Slam result by reaching the Wimbledon semifinal, and that same year she won the silver medal at the Olympic Games in Paris, the first Olympic medal in women's singles tennis for Croatia. In January 2025, she reached No. 17 in the WTA rankings, which is the best ranking of her career. These details explain why the ranking of 76 before Queen's Club does not fully realistically show her level when she finds rhythm on a fast surface. Vekić has already shown several times in her career that on grass she can quickly turn into a very uncomfortable opponent even for higher-ranked players.
This London week is also important because it comes after a period in which Vekić was seeking more stable continuity. The LTA emphasizes that with the semifinal victory she secured her first Tour final since the Paris Olympic final in 2024, while WTA data show that in 2026 before Queen's Club she had already had finals at WTA 125 level in Istanbul and Manila. Reaching the final of a WTA 500 tournament is therefore a qualitative step forward compared with the earlier results of the season. On grass, her game relies on serve, flat shots and the ability to turn short balls into direct points, and against Boulter she connected all those elements almost without any downtime. If she repeats such a level in the final, the meeting with Raducanu will not be just a battle against the home favorite, but also a test of whether Vekić can complete one of the most unusual tournament paths of her career.
Sources:
- Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) – report on Donna Vekić's victory over Katie Boulter, match statistics and path to the final (link)
- Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) – Katie Boulter's reactions after the semifinal and the context of her week at Queen's Club (link)
- Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) – results and daily updates of the HSBC Championships 2026, including the final pairing and closing schedule (link)
- Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) – preview of the Emma Raducanu vs Donna Vekić final and comparison of the players (link)
- WTA – official Donna Vekić profile with information on ranking, titles, career high and results at major tournaments (link)
- WTA – official overview of the HSBC Championships 2026 tournament with information on WTA 500 status, surface, dates and the return of the women's tournament to Queen's Club (link)