By Richard Pagliaro | Friday, January 21, 2022

 

Danielle Collins rallied past 19-year-old Clara Tauson 4-6, 6-4, 7-5 into the Australian Open fourth round for the second time in four appearances.

Photo credit: Getty

Danielle Collins unleashed competitive intensity off the charts.

Collins torched her blistering backhand off the lines to complete an electrifying comeback.

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Rallying from a one-set, one break deficit, a defiant Collins roared past talented teenager Clara Tauson 4-6, 6-4, 7-5 battling into the Australian Open fourth round for the second time in four appearances.

A fiery Collins cracked 33 winners, including banging her backhand with menacing intent when it mattered most to fight into the fourth round for the first time since her run to the 2019 final four.

“A long battle today, but super happy to be able to pull it out especially after kind of how that first set ended and moments not playing my best tennis," Collins told Casey Dellacqua afterward. "So trying to figure out solutions to come up with some good stuff against Clara because I think she was playing well at an incredibly high level and were gonna be seeing some really good results from here moving forward so it’s going to be exciting."

The 27th-seeded Collins joined compatriots Amanda Anisimova, Jessica Pegula and Madison Keys as the fourth American women through to the round of 16. Collins will play Elise Mertens for a quarterfinal spot.

The 19th-seeded Mertens needed just 70 minutes to dismiss China's Shuai Zhang 6-2, 6-2 converting five of eight break points in the process.

Former AO girls' champion Tauson took the court as the lone teenager standing in the draw.

Displaying all-court skills, the 19-year-old Tauson showed why she was a former junior world No. 1 in her response to an early deficit. Down love-3, Tauson tore through six of the next seven games for a one-set lead.

The Dane scored her third break to go up 2-1 in the second set, stamping a strong love hold to extend her lead to 4-2.



Two games from elimination, Collins went into warrior mode. Yelling at herself, tossing her racquet at times and blasting her backhand with venom, Collins streaked through five straight games to seize the second set and force a decider. 

“I was getting pretty hard on myself; I think that was pretty clear," Collins said. "I wanted to make some adjustments. Anytime you’re playing this time of day it’s a little bit hard with the sun on serve so I had to make some technical adjustments with the toss on my serve, had to try to bring the court in a little bit because I was missing quite a lot of shots I normally wasn't missing.

"So I needed to get my rhythm, play some long rallies and really make her work for it."

Serving at 4-5, a gutsy Tauson fought off three match points with successive bolds strikes. Tauson stood tall, holding with a shout for 5-all.

Undaunted, Collins came back cracking another backhand winner down the line for a fourth match point in the 12th game. Measuring the Tauson serve, Collins slashed a backhand return crosscourt off the sideline, paused uncertain if the shot was good, then raised her arms in triumph after a high-quality two hour, 35-minute win.