Donna Vekic and Marta Kostyuk are winners of WTA 250 tournaments in the week of February 27 – March 5, 2023.
Third seed Donna Vekic defeated top seed Caroline Garcia 6-4 3-6 7-5 in the final of the Abierto GNP Seguros in Monterrey, Mexico to capture her fourth career title and first since Courmayeur in 2021.
En route to the title, Vekic defeated Lesia Tsurenko in the first round, Emma Navarro in the second round, Ysaline Bonaventure in the quarterfinals, Zhu Lin in the semis, and lastly the world No.5 Garcia for her first Top 10 victory this season.
The 26-year-old Vekic was confident in her form and knew that success would come this year:
If the title didn’t come now, I believe it would have come soon. I’ve been playing good tennis and I need to keep working hard and hopefully stay healthy.
The Monterrey title has helped Vekic climb eight spots to No.23 in the rankings. Moreover, the victory on Sunday is her 14th match win this season and only two players have won 15 matches so far in 2023 — Garcia and Belinda Bencic.
Marta Kostyuk defeated fellow first-time finalist Varvara Gracheva 6-3 7-5 to win her maiden WTA singles title at the inaugural ATX Open in Austin, Texas. The Ukrainian dedicated the triumph to her home country, which has been in a devastating war.
The 20-year-old Kostyuk’s list of victims in Austin included: Dalma Galfi in the first round, Madison Brengle in the second round, Anna-Lena Friedsam in the quarterfinals, Danielle Collins in the semis, and in the end the world No.88 Gracheva from Russia. The Ukrainian broke serve 29 times across those 11 sets. Prior to victory over Collins, she owned a 0-4 career record in semifinal matches and was the highest-ranked player on Tour yet to appear in a WTA final.
There was no traditional post-match handshake after the ATX Open final, as the eighth-seeded Kostyuk doesn’t want to do so with players from Russia, the country that invaded Ukraine over a year ago, or Belarus, which is Russian ally.
When it comes to ranking, Kostyuk has climbed 12 spots to No.40.
