Danielle Collins shrugs off her bad back, pushes through into ATX Open quarterfinals

Danielle Collins knew when she woke up Thursday morning that it might not be a great day on the tennis court.

As if Katie Volynets wouldn’t be enough of a challenge, Collins woke up feeling the effects of her chronic arthritis, which sometimes flares when the temperature drops as it did from 80 Tuesday into the 40s and 50s Thursday.

Despite playing from behind for much of the match, Collins, the No. 3 seed at this week's ATX Open, found a way to survive, battling back to beat Volynets 4-6, 7-6, 6-0 and advance to Friday’s quarterfinals.

“There were some physical boundaries that I needed to push through and it was challenging,” Collins said. “I’ve had arthritis for a bunch of years now. There are days that go well where everything feels great, and then there are days like today where I have to work around stuff.”

“I knew today when I woke up that it wasn’t going to be great,” she continued. “It wasn’t ideal, but the main thing is that I figured out a way to win. I trust myself and my abilities in the big moments. I’ve lost close matches before, but I just kept thinking ‘let’s find a way to win this.’”

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One year later, Katie Volynets was as competitive as ever

Volynets, who frequently frustrates opponents by returning shot after shot, kept Collins at bay for much of the match.

“Katie is a hell of a player and she was doing everything right,” Collins said. “Tactically, I think she played the match very well and she fought very hard.”

She broke Collins’ serve three times to win the first set and broke Collins again at 4-4 in the second, giving her the chance to serve for the match leading 5-4. Collins responded immediately with a pair of backhand winners to break back and stay in the set. The pair remained tied into the tiebreaker, when Collins stepped on the gas and took over. She won the last four points of the tiebreaker to draw even and then won the last six games to advance.

“There was a really unfortunate momentum switch there in the third set,” Volynets said. “I fought until the end and I had some game points in that set, but I just couldn’t make it happen.”

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Said Collins: “I could tell she got a little bit nervous, and I think I finally just said, ‘well, if you’re going to be out there, go get the win and figure it out,’ and I really locked into a few of the things that I needed to do and stayed on myself in the moment. I got pretty disciplined in what I needed to do.”

Ignoring the pain to get to the quarterfinals

What did she need to do? Manage both her game and the pain she dealt with throughout the match.

“It was very clear that I was not hitting my shots the way that I normally do,” Collins said. “I was not moving the way that I normally do. I made a pretty big tactical adjustment in not taking as big a backswing and trying to keep it shorter and more compact. I think that helped me because my timing was pretty off today when I was taking big swings. Sometimes the bigger the swing, the more you miss.”

With the win, Collins advances to face No. 6-seeded Xiyu Wang, one of three Chinese players who reached the quarterfinals. Collins said after the match she’d spend the rest of Thursday and likely a good portion of Friday leading up to the match with the tour’s physical therapists.

“We have awesome physical therapists and they are lifesavers,” Collins said. “I feel like if we didn’t have them, I’d have to pull out of every other tournament. We’re going to do a couple of different (treatments).”

'I always think I have a chance to make something happen'

For Volynets, the loss ends what she hoped would be another successful Austin run. In fact, falling behind 5-0 in the final set is nothing new for her here. In last year’s second round, she found herself trailing third-seeded Anastasia Potapova 5-0 in the final set but rallied to win the last seven games to score the upset.

“I thought about last year” she admitted. “I always think I have a chance to make something happen.”

Volynets said she enjoyed being back in Austin, where she surprised herself last year with the run to the semifinals. Now, she’s resigned to processing the loss and figuring out what to take from it.

“It’s tough to process a match like this especially when you are so close to winning — serving for it in the second set — and then to end up so far away from it,” she said. “I thought I hung in tough against a former top-10 player who is still one of the biggest hitters on tour. I was able to use my ability to move and nearly get a win.”

ATX Open: up next

Friday’s quarterfinal schedule at Westwood Country Club begins at noon. Top-seeded Anhelina Kalinina faces No. 5-seeded Diane Parry at noon, followed by Collins against Wang. The winners of Thursday evening’s second round matches will meet in the third quarterfinal to start the evening session, and an all-Chinese battle between Yue Yuan and Yafan Wang wraps things up.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Danielle Collins beats Katie Volynets for ATX Open quarterfinals spot