Danielle Collins ended the clay season with her fighting spirit intact

PARIS—Danielle Collins had never been to Madrid, Rome or Paris before this spring, Now, after traveling on the WTA tour as a newly minted Top 50 player in April and May, she can say she’s been to all three of those legendary capitals of culture. Call it the 24-year-old’s requisite post-college European adventure. All that was missing was the Eurail pass and the giant backpack.

Such is life for up-and-coming American tennis players. They show some promise on the U.S. spring hard-court season, and then...you don’t hear from them until the following year’s spring hard-court season. By the time they’ve spent a month slogging on red clay during the day and flicking through Italian and French TV channels at night, they’ve lost whatever early-season momentum they may have built up. It’s a world tour, and even Americans have to learn that most of their matches are played far from home.

Few U.S. players had built up as much momentum as quickly as Collins did this March. Ranked No. 167 at the start of 2018, and better known for her prowess as a college player than as a pro, Collins came seemingly from nowhere to upset Madison Keys in Indian Wells and Venus Williams in Miami. Her mix of competitive intelligence and relentless aggression made it clear that she could play with anyone.

WATCH—Match point from Collins' loss to Wozniacki in Roland Garros:

But then, as it always does, a new question arises: Where does she go next? With her performances in Indian Wells and Miami, Collins had given herself a chance to join the 10-month grind known as professional tennis. It was the opportunity of a lifetime, but also the challenge of a lifetime.

“Traveling on your own is definitely the biggest change of pace from college tennis to the pros,” Collins told Athlete’s Quarterly last month. “You’re on the road three weeks out of the month. You also just have to get used to being in many different places and feeling like you have to be in multiple places at the same time...When you play 25 or 30 tournaments in a year, it’s really easy to get down on yourself and be negative.”

U.S. players continue to struggle on clay; other than Serena Williams, there hasn’t been an American winner at the French Open since Jennifer Capriati on the women’s side in 2001 and Andre Agassi on the men’s side in 1999. These days, though, some players from the States are at least willing to say they tolerate the red stuff—Jack Sock and Sloane Stephens claim it’s their favorite surface, and John Isner, Steve Johnson, Alison Riske, CoCo Vandeweghe and Frances Tiafoe have all had their moments on it in recent years. Every player in every country now plays what we used to call the clay-court game, and that’s true in the U.S., too.

Collins, who grew up in Har-Tru-heavy Florida, also says that clay is her favorite surface; she had no sense of dread about coming to Europe—Madrid, Rome, Strasbourg and Paris must have felt like a slight step up from Norman, OK, and Sumter, SC, two towns where she has spent time on the Futures tour in the past. And by going 6-4 on clay this spring, she acquitted herself in Europe as well as could be expected. She didn’t, in other words, disappear into a cloud of red dust.

On Monday, Collins’ European adventure came to an end at the hands of the No. 2 seed at Roland Garros, Caroline Wozniacki, in the first round. Collins couldn’t have asked for a better spot to go out: Court Philippe Chatrier, before an appreciative French Open audience.

The fans here, never easy to please, liked the way Collins took full cuts at every ball, and put every last bit of energy she had into every swing; as rallies lengthened, the pitch of her grunts rose higher with each swing. The fans also liked the way Collins traded punches with Wozniacki, and threw in stealthy drop shots like a true dirt-baller.

But the first-set tiebreaker proved to be her breaking point. When the points mattered more, Wozniacki’s superior smoothness and consistency became apparent. They became even more apparent in the second set, as the wheels came off for Collins and Wozniacki advanced 7-6 (2), 6-1.

Still, Collins never stopped searching for answers. She tried coming to net, she tried moving Woznaicki forward, she went to the moonball during the second set. Even in the final game, Collins was celebrating the points she won with a fist-pump. She left the clay season with her fighting spirit intact, which is all a U.S. tennis fan can ask.

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