​​The organizers of the National Bank Open tournament announced the schedule for Monday, August 8, in which Simona Halep will make her debut at the competition in Toronto (WTA 1000).

In the first match on the Central Court, Simona Halep will play Donna Vekic (86 WTA, lucky loser). The match will start at 18:00 and will be broadcast in LiveTEXT format on HotNews.ro.

Previously, Halep and Vekic met twice, and each time our athlete won: 6-2, 6-1 at the US Open-2013 and 6-4, 6-1 at Indian Wells-2017.

Who is Donna Vekich?

Donna was born on June 28, 1996 in Osijek (Croatia). He currently has 303 career wins and 158 losses. She has 3 WTA titles to her credit: Kuala Lumpur-2014, Nottingham-2017 and Courmayeur-2021.

Vekic is currently ranked 86th in the world. The best rating in her career was the 19th WTA, which she took on November 4, 2019. During this time, she collected 5,331,445 dollars from tennis.

In qualifying for the tournament in Toronto, Donna beat Lina Glushko (211 WTA), 6-4, 6-2, and was defeated by Asia Muhammad (182 WTA), 7-5, (2)6-7, 6-1.

A virtual tour of Simona Halep at the tournament in Toronto

I round: Donna Vekich

Round II: Shuai Zhang / Christina Buch

Optimists: Annette Kontaveit / Jill Teichmann / Venus Williams

Quarters: Corey Gauff / Arina Sabalanka / Olena Rybakina

Semifinals: Paula Badosa / Petra Kvitova / Jelena Ostapenko / Jessica Pegula / Emma Reducanu

Final: Iga Sviatek / Ons Jaber / Maria Sakkari / Belinda Bencic / Garbine Muguruza / Naomi Osaka.

The tournament in Toronto has a prize pool of $2,697,250 and is played on hard surfaces. The last winner is the Italian Camila Giorgi.

In 2021, Simona Halep was stopped in the second round, losing to Danielle Collins.