MELBOURNE, Australia — Ann Chisholm contemplated traveling from her Minnesota home to watch the main-draw debut of her cousin Danielle Collins at the Australian Open, but it seemed like a flight of fancy. Collins had lost in the first round of the three majors she played last year, and it made little sense for a relative to travel 10,000 miles to see what might be only one match.
But Chisholm continued monitoring airfares after each of Collins’s first three matches in Melbourne, all victories. Then, in the fourth round, the unseeded Collins defeated Angelique Kerber, the 2016 champion and this year’s No. 2 seed.
It was just past 11 on Saturday night in Grand Rapids, Minn., when Collins sealed the upset, and Chisholm’s inner voice, which had been nagging her for a week to hop on a plane, grew so loud she could hardly sleep.
On Sunday morning, Chisholm reached out to Collins and said she was looking at flights to Australia. Chisholm didn’t want her arrival to surprise Collins in case, she said, it “messed up her mojo.”
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