By Chris Oddo | Tuesday January 22, 2019
Talk about a brilliant debut.
American Danielle Collins continued her magical run defeating Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 2-6, 7-5, 6-1 on Day 9 to reach the semifinals on her Aussie Open debut. Collins, who entered the draw with an 0-5 lifetime record at the majors, was two points from falling in straight sets in her opening-round match against No.14-seeded Julia Goerges, but she came back to defeat the German in three, as well as No.19-seeded Caroline Garcia and No.2-seeded Angelique Kerber to become the tournament’s only unseeded semifinalist.
“I didn’t even practice on [Rod Laver Arena] before so this was quite the experience and I absolutely love it,” Collins said after rallying to defeat the Russian.
The two-time NCAA champion blew open a close match by dominating the World No.42 in the decider. She crushed 13 winners against a single unforced error in the third set and raced out to a commanding 5-0 lead before a shellshocked pavlyuchenkova could get on the board.
But one game was all the Russian would get. Collins converted her third match point to close the match in two hours and 19 minutes.
The American will face the winner of tonight’s second semifinal between Aussie Ash Barty and Petra Kvitova.
Collins is the sixth unseeded women’s singles semifinalist at the Aussie Open on the last five years.
None of the six have went on to reach the final.
Pavlyuchenkova drops to 0-5 lifetime in major quarterfinals. The Russian cracked 31 winners in the first two sets but only managed five in a lackluster decider.
Collins finished with 38 winners against 20 unforced errors.