By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Wednesday December 18, 2024
Donna Vekic has added a Grand Slam winning coach to her team.
The Croatian, who parted ways with coach Nikola Horvat in November, has added Sascha Bajin, the former hitting partner of Serena Williams and coach of Naomi Osaka, to her team.
Vekic, who won the Olympic silver medal in singles this year and also reached the Wimbledon semifinals, announced the news on her Instagram recently.
Vekic, currently ranked No.19, is just one spot shy of her career-high ranking. She will reportedly keep Pam Shriver as part of her team. The Hall of Famer has been in Vekic’s camp in an advisory role since 2022.
She became the first Croatian woman to reach the Wimbledon semifinals since 1999 this summer, before becoming the first woman from her country to earn an Olympic medal weeks later in Paris.
Bajin got his start as the hitting partner for Serena Williams then guided Naomi Osaka to a pair of major titles, at the 2018 US Open and the 2019 Australian Open. He later worked with Kristina Mladenovic, Dayana Yastremska, and spent two years with former World No.1 Karolina Pliskova, guiding the Czech star to the Wimbledon final in 2021.