In Pictures: Donna Vekic's beloved pet dog Mali arrives in French capital ahead of Croatian's Paris Olympics gold medal match against Zheng Qinwen
Donna Vekic's pet Goldendoodle Mali has joined the Croatian ahead of her Paris Olympics women's singles gold medal match against Zheng Qinwen on Saturday, August 3. Vekic made short work of Slovakia's Anna Karolina Schmiedlova in the semifinals to reach the most prestigious final of her career, which has so far yielded four singles titles.
Vekic has only lost a set at the Paris Olympics (against Ukraine's Marta Kostyuk in quarterfinals). Against everyone else, including World No. 2 Coco Gauff in the third round, the Croatian has been dominant.
Zheng too, has been on fire, with the Chinese having made her way to the gold medal match after orchestrating the exits of former World No. 1 Angelique Kerber and the current top-ranked women's singles player, Iga Swiatek.
Vekic's pet Goldendoodle, named Mali, arrived in Paris on Friday, August 2 ahead of her crunch clash against the World No. 7. The Croat took to Instagram to share a couple of moments she shared with Mali following the latter's arrival in the French capital. She captioned the post:
"Look who made it to Paris"
One of the pictures featured Mali adorably planting a kiss on Vekic's chin. The other one showed the Croatian and Mali strolling on the Parisian streets.
Mali was just a puppy when Vekic adopted her in early 2021. At the time, the Croatian had penned a heartwarming Instagram post to welcome Mali "to the team".
"Welcome to the team, Mali," Vekic had written in her Instagram post.
Men's singles finalist Novak Djokovic congratulated Donna Vekic and Qinwen Zheng after their respective semifinal wins
Both Vekic and Zheng celebrated their respective semifinal successes on Instagram. While Vekic's celebratory post revolved around Croatia being guaranteed of a medal in women's singles, Zheng's expressed the Chinese's belief that she can go on and clinch gold for herself and China.
Novak Djokovic, who at the time was gearing up for his own semifinal showdown against Lorenzo Musetti in men's singles, shared both the Croatian and the Chinese's posts in his Instagram Story. The Serb hailed their remarkable achievements before he reached his maiden men's singles final in his fifth Olympics appearance.
Donna Vekic and Zheng Qinwen have met twice before on the WTA Tour, with their head-to-head finely poised at 1-1. Their last meeting came the first round of the 2023 Zhuhai Championships, which went Zheng's way after three tightly-fought sets [6-4, 6-7(6), 6-4].