Ana Konjuh is in the quarterfinals of the US Open! 18-year-old Konjuh from Dubrovnik has entered the quarterfinals of the US Open after defeating the fourth seed and the fourth ranked player in the world Agnieszka Radwanska from Poland. It one of the major upsets of this Grand Slam tournament Konjuh sent the favourite Radwanska without losing a set – 6.4, 6.4. Under the roof in Arthur Ashe Stadium the ace from Dubrovnik finally got the better of the Polish player, after losing seven matches in a row against her.

Konjuh, who is ranked only 92nd, jumped for joy as she wrapped up the match, her first win against a top ten player. ''I'm real excited about my performance tonight. My serve was pretty good tonight,'' Konjuh said. ''I don't think she had any answers,'' commented Konjuh after the match.

In the quarterfinals Konjuh will play against Karolina Pliskova from Czech Republic, the tenth seed at this year’s US Open. Pliskova caused the biggest upset of the tournament when she defeated Venus Williams.

The seventh “Kinookus” food film festival begins on Thursday the 8th of September. This unique event, held in Ston a 45 minute drive from Dubrovnik, is the oldest food film festival in Europe. And this seventh edition will be held from the 8th to the 11th of September with the theme of “Food Tourism.”

The festival opens with the multi-award winning Croatian documentary film Tourism! The film deals with the effects of mass tourism on the Dalmatian coastline and is directed by Tonci Gacina. The program continues with 25 different events, including a Japanese film, a Chinese film and a French film in a very varied film festival.

In the “Kinofocus” section there will be three presentations. Anton Prega, an acclaimed Albanian chef, will present his agro tourism “Mrizi and Zanave.” Ana and Bozidar Jukic will present their agency Insider Holidays which offers visitors to Dubrovnik a unique insight into the cuisine, wines and local customs of the area. And Eugenio Berra from the Italian Association for Responsible Tourism will recall tales of the Danube Delta.

For more information and a full program of events check out the festivals website – kinookus.com

After a quite successful start of the first season connecting Canada and Croatia, Canada's Air Transat (TS/TSC) has already announced an upgrade of its seasonal flights between Toronto and Zagreb for 2017.

Next year the carrier will launch its flights earlier on the 30th of May instead of this year's mid-June. It will operate them twice a week (on Tuesdays and Sundays from Toronto, and on Mondays and Wednesdays from Zagreb) until the 18th of October 2017. On the other hand, in order to cope with the peak season demand, there will be a second flight each week from the 18th of June to the 4th of September. The carrier's operations will continue to be maintained with the Airbus A330-200 aircraft.

Earlier this June, Gilles Ringwald, the Air Transat's Commercial Vice President said that the airline's operations to Croatia in 2017 would largely depend on this year's performance. "This is a seasonal service running from June to October because our estimates show that during the winter demand is very low. If we achieve satisfactory results this summer, we could extend the season next year", Ringwald said, adding that the leisure airline planned to carry around 5,000 passengers on its seventeen return flights to Zagreb in 2016. "We are always looking for new opportunities and could introduce additional frequencies on the route next year. It will all depend on this summer's results", he concluded.

When The Dubrovnik Times was contacted a few weeks ago by a reader who wanted to surprise his girlfriend on their first anniversary together in Dubrovnik we were only too willing to help. Pol Abril asked us if he could put a photo along with a special message to his girlfriend, Sara Richardson, in The Dubrovnik Times. The message read “Many people will read this, but only one will understand it!”

Sara was completely unaware of this little surprise, but thanks to this great video we can see her reaction.

Check out this cool video

Dubrovnik, thanks to the talented Daniel Pavlinovic, will feature in the World Meteorological Organization 2017 calendar! The spectacular photo was taken above Dubrovnik on the Srd Mountain and was taken by Pavlinovic in September 2013.
The WMO launched a competition for entries onto their 2017 calendar last year with the theme of “Understanding Clouds.” They received hundreds of thousands of entries from all over the world and after the expert jury made their decision Pavlinovic and Dubrovnik won a place on the final calendar for 2017.

A jury made up of meteorological experts and professional photographers picked the top 13 photos sent in and it wasn’t an easy job as the organisation stated that “We received an overwhelming number of amazing photo submissions.”

“The photo shows the cumulonimbus cloud after the passage of the cold front over Dubrovnik,” commented a proud Pavlinovic for The Dubrovnik Times. And we think you’ll agree that the photo is truly spectacular.

Marina Mamic is incredibly talented Croatian make-up artist who has become famous because her amazing transformations into celebrities. Her latest transformation included Julia Roberts, famous actress and Marina got really positive reactions from her followers.

But this talented make-up artist also got a big surprise – Julia Roberts herself has shared her transformation on her official Instagram profile! Marina was so happy and shared that information whith her followers. This is really huge promotion for Croatian make-up artist, since over 111 thousand people have seen the video.

Until now, Marina has transformed herself into numerous celebrities, such as Johnny Depp, Rihanna, Nicki Minay, Orlando Bloom, Sarah Jessica Parker and many more. We hope that her Julia Roberts transformation will make her famous all over the world since she has an amazing talent.

According to an online survey carried out by the GfK pollsters, more than half of the world population have at least one pet.

This survey included over 27,000 people from 22 countries and showed that Latin American countries (Argentina, Mexico and Brazil) have the highest number of pet owners, followed by USA and Russia. Croatians also placed high on this list i.e. 61 percent of Croatian households have at least one pet.

On the other hand, Asian countries appear to have the smallest percentage of pet owners, according to this online survey.

As far as Croatian pet owners are concerned, dogs are the most preferred pet animals i.e. 41 percent of people own a dog whilst 29 percent of Croatians are cat lovers.

By the geographical division, around 76 percent inhabitants in the north of Croatia have a pet, whilst 46 percent of people from the south (Dalmatia) cater for pets.

According to the press release from GfK, a third of the online population from 22 countries reported to have a dog, compared to 23 percent of people who have a cat. On the other hand, only 12 percent of people have a pet fish and 6 percent of them have a pet bird.
Generally, dogs are the most popular pets among the respondents of the GfK survey, especially in Argentina (66%) and Mexico (64%).

Among 22 world countries Turkey has the highest number of bird owners (20%).

Brad Pitt is so much in love with Croatia that he has promised to come back soon. The Hollywood actor spent a two-day flying visit to the Croatian coastline last week and more details of his trip are emerging.

Although at first it was believed that Pitt had just arrived in Sibenik on a holiday it has been revealed that in fact he was in Croatia on business. According to reports from RTL television Pitt met with architect Nikola Bašić and investors to see the site of a new development which would include luxury villas, a golf course, shops and a hotel.

“He is very modest and approachable,” commented Bašić to the newspaper Vecernji List. Adding that the star of Inglourious Basterds is a passionate lover of architecture and that during his visit he wanted to see as much of Croatia as possible.

“Croatia is the most beautiful country I have visited,” the architect recounted the words that Pitt used as he toured the coastline. Apparently the husband of Angelina Jolie was fascinated by the clean seas and the intensity of the colours.