On Friday night, in the quarterfinals of the WTA 500 tournament in San Diego, American Collins narrowly defeated the tournament's No. 2 seed Bardosa 7-6(5) 6-4 to reach the semifinals.
The win was an important milestone for Collins, as she had already scored her 100th singles win of her career.
Collins had a brilliant college tennis career, winning two NCAA singles titles, and graduated from the University of Virginia in 2016 to play professionally.
2017 was Collins' first full season as a professional, competing in the ITF. Moving into 2018, she shifted her focus to playing on the WTA Tour, where she made her breakthrough in March of the same year.
At the WTA 1000 Miami tournament that year, she broke through from the qualifying round, defeating Begu, van der Weg, Van der Weg, Vic , Puig, Williams and other famous players all the way to the first tour final four, when she was only 24 years old.
In the four and a half years since, Collins has racked up 92 Tour singles victories.
Here are her results over season
Year, number of wins and losses
2014: 0-1
2015: 0-0
2016: 0-1
2017: 0-1
2018: 17-17
2019: 18-18
2020: 10-6
2021: 37-15
2022: 18-9 (until San Diego semifinals)
It is worth mentioning that the quarter-final victory over Bardosa in San Diego was Collins' 10th career victory over the world's top 10 players, and all on hard courts.
Collins' career wins against the world's top 10:
Event name, score
2018 Miami QF, 6-2 6-3 victory over World No. 8 Williams
In the fourth round of the 2019 Australian Open, he swept world No. 2 Kerber 6-0 6-2
In the first round of Brisbane 2020, 6-1 6-1 swept the world No. 5 Svitolina
2020 Adelaide QF, 6-3 6-1 beat world No. 7 Bencic
Melbourne 2021 in the third round, 7-6(5) 7-6(3) defeated world No. 6 Pliskova
2021 Adelaide second round, 6-3 6-4 defeat world number one Barty
2022 Australian Open semi-finals, 6-4 6-1 victory over world No. 9 Swiatek
In the fourth round of the 2022 Miami Tournament, 6-2 6-4, he defeated world No. 10 Abdul-Jabbar
In the first round of San Diego 2022, 6-2 7-6 (4) defeated world No. 10 Garcia
San Diego QF 2022, beating world No. 4 Bardosa 7-6(5) 6-4
Interestingly, Collins' ten victories over the world's top 10 players have been in straight sets. Reaching the semifinals in San Diego is also her first tour final four since the Australian Open this year, and the WTA 500 final four for the first time in three years.
She will next compete with Vic for the right to the final, and the latter's recent form has been quite good, who can have the last laugh? (Source: Tennis House Author: Wu Li Quhao)
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