Virginia’s Danielle Collins talks about winning the WAATC singles title at Riviera.
The conditions were sweltering last week at Riviera Tennis Club, but not nearly as hot as University of Virginia senior Danielle Collins, who captured the singles crown of the ITA Women’s All-American Tennis Championships for her second national title this season.
Collins’ opponent in Sunday’s final was a familiar one — Miami sophomore Sinead Lohan, who she swept 6-1, 6-0 on her way to the Oracle/ITA Masters singles championship last month up the road in Malibu — and Sunday’s final yielded a similar result. Collins needed 80 minutes to prevail, 6-1, 6-2 and earn an automatic entry into the USTA/ITA National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships at the USTA National Tennis Center in Flushing, New York in November.
Collins didn’t play Riviera last year but went on to claim the NCAA Division I National Singles Championship. She made it look easy over the four days, winning all five of her matches in straight sets. Afterwards, she thanked her teammates, the sponsors and especially Riviera members Bonnie and Bob Friedman, with whom she stayed during the tournament.
“They made me breakfast every morning,” she said. “I wouldn’t have done it without the waffles and bacon and eggs… so thank you!”
Collins had little time to savor the victory because she was scheduled to catch a red-eye flight home that night, but throughout the awards presentation the smile never left her face. After all, she has not lost in singles this fall.
“I don’t think seeding is all that important,” said Collins, the first Cavaliers player to win the WAATC in its 33-year history. “It’s nice to be seeded like I was, but it’s more important to be confident and feel good about how you’re playing coming into an event and I definitely did.”
Collins played like she was in a hurry, ousting USC’s Juliana Olmos, 6-0, 6-2 in the first round Thursday and Caroline Doyle from Stanford, 6-1, 6-3, in the second round Friday morning.
That afternoon she took on top-seeded Brooke Austin of Florida in the quarterfinals and won in shockingly easy fashion, 6-1, 6-0.
As well as Collins has played to start the season, having won her first three events, she suffered a a 5-7, 6-0, 6-3 defeat to Lohan in an Atlantic Coast Conference dual match last spring.
“The last time we played I won, so I wasn’t thinking about last year,” Collins said. “I’ve been working on my game a lot since then. I got off to a great start today and just kept it going the whole match.”
As the temperature on the court rose, so did Collins’ level of play. She broke Lohan to take a 3-1 lead in the second set and broke again at love to end the match, walking briskly to the net to shake hands after Lohan’s backhand grounstroke landed wide.
“I didn’t have the best start this fall, so it’s great getting to the finals here,” said the unseeded Lohan, who made short work of qualifier Ellen Perez of Georgia, 6-1, 6-2, in the semifinals — her fourth consecutive win over a top 30-ranked player. “Danielle beat me handily at Oracle and I knew if she played that way again I wasn’t going to win. I tried, but she didn’t allow me to play my best.”
Lohan pulled off the biggest upset of the week by stunning Collins’ teammate, second-seeded Julia Elbaba, 3-6, 6-4, 6-2, in the first round Thursday.
“I’d never played her before,” said Lohan, who is from Tramore, Ireland. “Actually, the toughest was the three-setter with Taylor Davidson [of Stanford] in the quarterfinals because it was my second match of the day and it was very physically demanding.”
Throughout the week Lohan resided with Palisadians Paul and Jessica Takakjian, whose daughters Katie and Julie played tennis at Palisades High before moving on to UCLA and whose son Jake is on the Dolphins’ lacrosse squad.
“I love the weather, I love the atmosphere here and 100 percent I’ll be back,” Lohan promised.
In Sunday’s consolation singles final, Jasmine Lee of Mississippi State upset Elbaba, 6-1, 6-4, and also qualified for the Indoor Championships.
The Cal team stayed the week at the home of Pali High tennis coach Bud Kling in the El Medio neighborhood and the players felt right at home. Kling has hosted the Golden Bears six times in the last 10 years.
“We’re incredibly thankful to have him house us — he, his wife Cheryl and (their dog) Sadie are so great,” Cal junior Maegan Manasse said. “Being a coach himself he knows what we need and he comes to our matches to cheer us on.”
Manasse, who grew up in Southern California and was a prep standout at Mira Costa High in Manhattan Beach, lost to Collins in the semifinals in singles but bounced back to win the doubles title with fellow junior Denise Starr, defeating North Carolina’s Hayley Carter and Whitney Kay, 6-1, 6-4, in Sunday’s championship match.
After an easy first set, the Cal duo squandered three match points at 5-3 in the second set but held serve to close it out.
“We’ve been playing together since my freshman year so we’ve had tons of matches together,” Starr said. “Maegan has amazing reflexes at the net and our games just mesh.”
It was a nostalgic moment for California coach and former Golden Bears player Amanda Augustus, who won the Riviera doubles title 20 years earlier with Renata Kolbovic.
“It’s my favorite tournament, I love coming here,” Augustus said. “This place holds special memories for me and I’m so happy for Denise and Maegan — they deserve it.”
Manasse fell to Collins 7-6 (7), 6-3 in Saturday’s singles semifinals. Cal senior Klara Fabikova lost a tough three-setter in the round of 16 to Michigan’s Ronit Yurovsky and Cal sophomore Karla Popovic, making her tournament debut, lost to Boston College’s Lexi Borr in qualifying.
— Steve Galluzzo
California’s Maegan Manasse talks about her first round victory at the WAATC.
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