Virginia Women’s Tennis | Navarro, Collins Play Way into Wimbledon Second Week

LONDON – Virginia women’s tennis alumne Emma Navarro ’22 and Danielle Collins ’16 are the last two American women remaining in the singles field at the Championships at the All England Club in Wimbledon, England.

Navarro defeated No. 2 seed Coco Gauff on Sunday (July 7) to advance to her first-ever quarterfinal of a Grand Slam event. Collins advanced to the Round of 16 on Saturday (July 6) with a straight-set win against 20-seed Beatriz Haddad Maia. Collins will take on No. 32 Barbora Krejcikova on Monday (July 8) as the third match on Court 1, looking to join Navarro in the final eight.

Navarro collected her first-ever win at Wimbledon with a dominant 6-0, 6-2 victory against China’s Qiang Wang in the opening round. Navarro then took Centre Court, facing four-time Grand Slam Champion Naomi Osaka in the second round, logging a 6-4, 6-1 victory. She won in three sets against NC State alumna Diana Shnaider in the third round. Shnaider and Navarro were doubles partners at the French Open, advancing to the quarterfinals, and had also faced one another a week earlier in the semifinals at Bad Hamburg and in the finals of a lead-up to the French Open in Paris in May with Shnaider winning both of those meetings.

With the win against Gauff, Navarro has two wins over Top 2 players in her career, having beaten then-No.2 Aryna Sabalenka earlier this year in Indian Wells.

“Something my coach talks about is looking at matches as if they’re a dual match like in college,” Navarro said. “In college, the format is you play a single match in a week. … You can’t work your way into a tournament, build confidence or whatever. You just are playing one specific opponent on one specific day. I think that mindset has definitely helped me just not to look at a day like today as any different than any other match. I think, yeah, just being able to look at individual matches for what they are and not make them anything greater than that.”

This is her first time making the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam after advancing to the Round of 16 at the French Open last month.

Navarro will next face No.7 seed Jasmine Paolini. Navarro is a perfect 3-0 over Paolini, all of those matches coming in the last nine…