The 2024 season was a special one for Donna Vekic on many fronts. Last year, she reached the semifinals of the Wimbledon Championships and also won a silver medal at the Paris Olympic Games. What’s more, she even went on to achieve her career-best ranking of Number 18 in the WTA rankings. As Vekic looks to continue the momentum this year, she has made a big change to her coaching team as she announced the addition of a new coach who is also linked to Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka.

For the 2025 season, Vekic has announced that Sascha Bajin has joined her team. In November last year, Vekic’s then-coach, Nikola Horvat, parted ways with Vekic on mutual terms after he and his wife were expecting twins. Although Pam Shriver has remained with Vekic, the Croatian star added Bajin to her team as she looks to win big titles this year.

Interestingly, Bajin has a strong CV, which includes stints with players like Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka. Bajin was Williams’ hitting partner for eight years during which the American legend won several big titles. Further, Bajin also worked with Osaka as a head coach from 2017 to 2019. During his stint with Osaka, the Japanese star won a couple of Grand Slam titles, and Bajin was named the WTA Coach of the Year in 2018. Apart from the two, Bajin also worked with the likes of Victoria Azarenka, Sloane Stephens, and Caroline Wozniacki.

Further, a stint with Williams actually helped Bajin in his coaching career. He once mentioned, “The biggest lesson I’ve learned from Serena Williams was, without a doubt, how to keep up the intensity and how to practice. She is a workhorse. Nothing in her life came easy and she really had to work super hard for everything in her life.”

However, not everything has been smooth in Bajin’s coaching career. Despite helping Osaka win two major titles, the two separated shortly after Osaka’s 2019 Australian Open win.

Naomi Osaka and Sascha Bajin’s partnership suffered an unfortunate end

While the root cause of many partnerships getting broken is poor results, this wasn’t the case for Osaka and Bajin’s partnership. In 2019, Osaka won back-to-back Grand Slam titles and achieved the World Number 1 rank. However, to everyone’s surprise, she ended her partnership with Bajin, and it was rumored that it was related to money.

Dismissing those talks, Osaka revealed, “Everyone thinks it was a money-related issue but it wasn’t. That’s one of the most hurtful things I’ve ever heard. I travel with everyone on my team, I see them more than my family. I would never do that to them. My reason is I wouldn’t put success over my happiness – that’s my main thing. I’m not going to sacrifice that just to keep a person around.”

However, their partnership started deteriorating in Melbourne during the Australian Open and the duo ended their collaboration shortly after. It was one of the most saddening ends to Bajin’s largely successful stint. Nonetheless, the German coach would hope that he can add a winning touch to Vekic’s game. And that she wins a big title this year.