Healthy Collins moves on to semifinals
American playing well less than a year after endometrial surgery
Danielle Collins has played exceptional tennis to reach the semifinals of the Australian Open, but only after achieving the victory of being “able to feel like a normal person.”
Less than a year after an endometriosis diagnosis led to the removal of a tennis-ball sized cyst from her uterus, as well as tissue from her bladder and bowels, the 27th seed surged past Alizé Cornet 7-5, 6-1 Wednesday in Rod Laver Arena.
“The advice that I had gotten over the years is that painful periods are normal, taking anti-inflammatories on a regular basis is normal,” Collins said. “I felt like it was something that I just had to deal with. It finally got to the point where I couldn’t deal any longer with it physically or mentally. I feel (the surgery has) helped me so much, not just from a physical standpoint but from a mental standpoint.”
Cornet said Collins’ play had been even more powerful and stifling than she had expected.
“Her ball is going really fast in the air, and she takes the ball super early,” Cornet said. “All the time you feel really oppressed. I felt out of breath all the time. I couldn’t, like, place my game. She just never let me do it, never gave me the time to do it. Yeah, she’s impressive.”
Collins returns to the semifinals three years after making her only other Grand Slam singles semifinal appearance here. Cornet was play- ing in her first quarterfinal in 63 Grand Slam main draw appearances.
“I have eternal respect for the Grand Slam winner because it’s such a long way; my God, I have the feeling I’m playing this tournament for a year,” Cornet said. “I’m so exhausted mentally, physically. When you go all the way and win these freaking seven matches, it’s just huge.”
Collins will face seventh-seeded Iga Swiatek of Poland, who needed more than three hours to beat Estonian Kaia Kanepi 4-6, 7-6 (2), 6-3 Wednesday. Thursday’s first semifinal will pit the top-seeded Australian Ashleigh Barty against unseeded American Madison Keys. If Collins and Keys both win, it will set up the first all-American final in Melbourne since Serena Williams beat her sister Venus in 2017.
Collins, 28, first reached the semifinals here three years ago in a breakout run that confirmed her arrival from collegiate standout at the University of Virginia to elite professional.
Apart from her physical improvements, Collins said that some of her biggest mental growth came in late 2020 on a very different surface than her usual field of play, when American doubles specialist Bethanie Mattek-Sands took her rock climbing in Arizona.
Collins, who has a long-held fear of heights, said she was “terrified” by the “what ifs” of rock climbing and the stakes involved, even with ample safety equipment in use, made tennis seem relaxing by comparison.
“Halfway through it I realized every time I step out on the court, it’s not life or death,” she said. “For people in rock climbing, it can be. That was a really big realization.”