CHARLESTON, S.C. -- There’s a lot to like about this charismatic southern city. The restaurants are top notch, there’s Rainbow Row on quaint East Bay Street, historic Fort Sumter, Charleston Harbor and City Market.

Daria Kasatkina is here for all of that -- but she keeps coming back for the tennis. This is her fifth appearance at the Credit One Charleston Open, and her record on the green clay is a spectacular 18-3. She was still a teenager when she won her first Hologic WTA Tour title here in 2017. 

“Everything around makes Charleston a special place,” Kasatkina said Friday, “and I really enjoy being here. Maybe because unconsciously, I want to stay here longer, that’s why I’m playing good here.”

On Sunday (2:30 p.m. ET), Kasatkina has the opportunity to hoist the winner’s trophy for a second time after defeating top-seeded Jessica Pegula 6-4, 4-6, 7-6 (5) on Saturday.

The No.4 seed will be supremely challenged by unseeded Danielle Collins, who was a 6-3, 6-3 winner over No.3 Maria Sakkari.

Collins has won 12 straight matches -- equaling the best run of her career, when she glided through Palermo, San Jose and part of Montreal three years ago. Coming off the title at the Miami Open, this will be Collins’ 13th match in 19 days -- and her fifth in the past four.

“This is what I do,” Collins said in a Tennis Channel interview. “Gotta bring the fire.”

Which player will recover best? Who will summon the energy necessary to close it out? We investigate:

The case for Collins

How do you win the biggest tournament of your life, then recalibrate -- on an entirely different surface -- and blow right through the next stacked draw all over again? 

Collins was ranked No.71 the first week of February and No.53 heading into Miami. With one more win here, she’ll be No.15 when the rankings turn over Monday. She’s posted 21 victories already this year -- a total surpassed only by No.1 Iga Swiatek and No.4 Elena Rybakina (22).

In the zone: Collins' top five winners from her 12th straight victory

In January, Collins, 30, announced her intention to retire at the end of the season and the emerging narrative is that the decision has allowed her to play some of the best tennis of her life.

She’s isn’t so sure.

“It’s kind of like a vague thing or assumption to kind of make,” Collins said, “because it’s easy to say, `Oh, well, she’s retiring at the end of the year, so she must be playing so freely.’ But the reality is that I’ve made improvements each match, and a lot of those improvements have been technical, tactical. 

“Athletically, there are things that I've improved, not tremendously, but little by little. And I think it’s important to highlight those things.”

Perhaps the best case for Collins was made by Kasatkina herself.

“Danielle is, I think, playing the best tennis of her career right now,” Kasatkina said. “She’s fearless. When she feels her game, she’s one of the most dangerous players on tour, and she definitely feels it right now.”

The head-to-head feels like a push. Kasatkina has a 2-1 advantage and won the only match on clay, six years ago in Rome. But the past two matches, both in 2021, have gone three sets and Collins won the last one, in the San Jose final.

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The case for Kasatkina

First, the good news: She’s been incredibly, undeniably resilient this week. 

Kasatkina was down 4-2 in the first set against Pegula, 5-3 in the second, 2-0 in the third -- and 3-1 in the tiebreak. And yet, she kept coming back in a match that clocked in at 2 hours, 47 minutes.

It was her third three-set match of the tournament. After dropping the second set to American teenager Ashlyn Krueger 6-0, Kasatkina won six of the last seven games. After losing the opening-set tiebreak to Jaqueline Cristian, Kasatkina responded with a 6-2, 6-3 flurry.

The bad news: Before the fifth game of the third set in the semifinals, Kasatkina called for the trainer. She returned to the court with a heavy strap around her right thigh. Pegula tried to run her from side to side, up and back, but Kasatkina worked through whatever she was going through.

Kasatkina edges past Pegula to return to Charleston final

Heading into their match, Pegula offered an uncanny scouting report.

“I expect the same thing I always expect from Daria,” Pegula said. “She’s just kind of a wall.”

Kasatkina does not have the powerful weapons some of her colleagues do, but she likes to say she wins with brains and heart.

“I have to fight and fight smart and try to always find the ways how to win, how to try to sneak and steal these points from the opponents, have to make them uncomfortable,” she said.

“It’s a reality which you have to face that you are not good enough in certain moments, but also it helps you to progress. These things they make you work and find the good way of how to go. Yeah, I think like everything in life, tennis is pretty similar to that.”

This is already her third final this year, after Adelaide and Abu Dhabi. She lost in those events to Jelena Ostapenko and Elena Rybakina, respectively, and is burning to go the distance here.

Kasatkina made the semifinals here last year, losing to eventual champion Ons Jabeur. Her 18-3 record is the best reason to believe she will go on to collect her second Charleston title.