What do you do when you catch your first glimpse of a college player who has joined the tour? If you’re like me, you look for the flaws. What was it that kept them from believing, like virtually all top players believe, that they were ready to turn pro when they were in their teens?
With Danielle Collins, the 24-year-old graduate of the University of Virginia who faced Venus Williams in Miami on Wednesday, there’s a raw quality to parts of her game. Her ball toss is high and she can misfire with her serve by yards. Her elbow can fly out on her forehand, and she can struggle with it when she’s on the run. Over the last few weeks, in her matches against Madison Keys, CoCo Vandeweghe, Donna Vekic, Monica Puig, and now Venus Williams, I’ve waited for one of her flaws to prove fatal, for that moment to come when the more-seasoned pro takes over, and Collins shows her inexperience. It hasn’t come yet. If anything, the opposite keeps happening: Collins keeps taking over.
She appears to be getting better with every match she plays. It took her three sets to beat Vandeweghe, Vekic, and Puig in Miami, but just two sets—6-2 and 6-3—to beat Williams, the woman Collins calls her idol. How is the native Floridian, who didn’t appear to be on any future-star radar screens four weeks ago, doing it?
Match point from Danielle Collins vs. Venus Williams in Miami:
