Iga Swiatek fights to set up Australian Open semi-final against Danielle Collins

Iga Swiatek showed her fighting spirit again at the Australian Open to defeat Kaia Kanepi and set up a semi-final against Danielle Collins.

Seventh seed Swiatek went into her quarter-final against Kanepi as the only top-20 player left in the bottom half of the draw and kept her hopes alive of claiming a second grand slam title with a 4-6 7-6 (2) 6-3 victory.

Estonian Kanepi has a long-standing reputation for toppling big names at grand slams, with her fourth-round victory over second seed Aryna Sabalenka her ninth against a top-10 player at the majors.

Now 36 and ranked 115, Kanepi was trying to reach her first slam semi-final, and she finally clinched her ninth set point to take the opener.

But Swiatek had battled from a set down to beat Sorana Cirstea in the previous round and she dug deep again, her efforts summed by some remarkable scrambling on match point.

Collins had a more straightforward time of things in her quarter-final against Alize Cornet, pulling away after a tight first set to win 7-5 6-1.

It is a second slam semi-final for the 28-year-old American, who also reached the last four here in 2019.

Collins has rediscovered her best form since surgery last spring for endometriosis, where she had a cyst the size of a tennis ball removed.

“When so much of the advice you’ve gotten over the years, certainly the advice that I had gotten over the years, is that painful periods are normal, taking anti-inflammatories on a regular basis is normal, I felt like it was something that I just had to deal with,” she said.

“It finally got to the point where I couldn’t deal any longer with it physically or mentally. Once I was able to get the proper diagnosis and the surgery, I feel like it’s helped me so much not just from a