Donna Vekic extends Sakkari troubles with a convicing win in San Diego

Donna Vekic smashed Maria Sakkari 7-6(3) 6-1 at the San Diego Open to continue her struggles in recent weeks.

Maria Sakkari has been playing underwhelming for quite a while and her season overall has been far from what we have gotten used to from her in the past few years. She's always had problems with consistency but generally, it mostly affected her in the final stages of an event and less so in the first round.

In the past few months, she's made a habit of losing to players she normally should have beaten and it was quite striking in Parma recently when she lost the final to Mayar Sherif who is not even ranked inside the top 50. Her poor form continued in this match especially after she dropped the first set.

The first set was quite competitive as Vekic took the first break but Sakkari battled back. She took a 4-2 lead and held it for one game before dropping it and allowing the Croatian to make it 5-5. From there Vekic slowly took over and got the first set 7-3 in the tiebreak.

Just like in the Parma final, Sakkari surrendered a break to lose the set and it only got worse from there. In the second set Vekic completely smashed her as Sakkari fell apart which is unfortunately fairly common for her. The Croatian finished it off 6-1.