Danielle Collins falls in Australian Open semifinals

Former Virginia Cavaliers tennis star Danielle Collins lost 7-6(2), 6-0 to eighth seeded Petra Kvitová in the semifinals of the Australian Open yesterday afternoon to end her Cinderella run.

Collins started off the match on a high note, blasting a winner off of a Kvitova serve to claim the first break at 3-2. The Czech responded quickly, however, breaking right back in the following service game to square the match at 3-3. Following a heat delay, the two would fight back and forth until the tiebreaker, where Kvitova’s power proved too much for the American. After a hard fought opening game to start the second, Kvitova rolled her way to a straight set victory.

Wednesday’s loss capped an incredible run for the 25 year old, who before last week boasted a career record of 0-5 in Grand Slam events. Collins’ three-set win over Russia’s Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova on Tuesday made her the first woman’s player who participated in college tennis to reach the semifinals in a slam since Meredith McGrath accomplished the same feat at Wimbledon in 1996.

For Collins, currently ranked No. 35 in the world and expected to make a big jump in the rankings, she hopes the performance to be a sign of things to come, just as she explained after Saturday’s upset of world No. 2 Angelique Kerber, “I may not have won a Grand Slam match before this week, but I gotta tell you, I think it’s gonna keep happening.”

We can’t wait to watch.