Vacation time came a little earlier than Danielle Collins would have liked.
Just days after the polarizing American taunted the crowd at Melbourne Park after beating local favorite Destanee Aiava, the crowd had the last laugh as the 10th seed lost to compatriot Madison Keys 6-4, 6-4.
There was real anticipation in the air that Collins might face a night where she was booed mercilessly from start to finish as the crowd returned to Rod Laver Arena after watching men’s top seed Jannik Sinner beat Marcos Giron.
As the crowd moved to take a breather, the announcer in the arena mentioned that Collins would be next, an announcement that was met with a chorus of boos.
The official player entries then took place and Keys was cheered as if she was the best Ash Barty coming out for the women’s final three years ago.
Collins came out to hearty boos and waved while grinning from ear to ear. This was the atmosphere she wanted, or at least that’s what she thought.
Although Collins has repeatedly said she enjoys being the bad guy, she’s still human and didn’t look at all comfortable during her opening service game.
The 31-year-old immediately double-faulted, as the crowd cheered with every serve that fell wide of the goal or hit the net.
Keys has probably never been cheered like this at Melbourne Park, and probably never will again, and she took full advantage of her morning break.
Madison Keys was hailed as a hometown hero by the crowd at Rod Laver Arena. (Getty Images: Robert Prange)
The crowd had the true energy of a local football crowd at times, as some punters just laughed when Collins made a mistake.
Collins found, somewhat surprisingly, her own allies, a noisy group of supporters sitting directly behind her players’ stand who cheered her at every point. Even when she was wrong, you could hear them shouting, “I love the idea, Danielle.”
Focusing on the antics in the stands would not do justice to either of these women, as they both played excellent tennis.
After losing the first set, Collins came out and broke Keys to start the second, but gave it back almost immediately before being broken herself.
She suffered a knee problem towards the end of the second set, which ultimately spelled the end of her comeback attempt.
Despite being booed after her loss to Keys, Collins remained adamant that she didn’t lose much overall, even though she has become a lightning rod for criticism in recent days.
“I think six different sponsorship opportunities will come up in this tournament alone,” she told reporters at Melbourne Park after the defeat. “It’s a great signal for me.
“Obviously, like I said, every fan contributes. It’s been a real blessing.”
There was a real chance that Collins’ showdown against Keys would end in some ugly scenes, but to the crowd’s credit, they were largely well behaved, save for a few sporadic hecklers.
“The most important thing is no one was hurt,” Collins said.
“Maybe some feelings were hurt or things were taken personally, when they probably shouldn’t have been taken personally by the crowd.
“I feel like people take life too seriously sometimes. I think in our sport it’s like someone telling me that the average age of people watching and tennis fans is 65.
“We have to somehow bring some entertainment to the game. I think we can try to make jokes and laugh.
“I don’t have a big ego when it comes to this. Honestly, I don’t care what’s written about me. I don’t care what some guy living in his basement writes on the Internet.
“You know what I mean? I’m just trying to have fun. I’m just trying to enjoy my life and have fun with it.”
Collins revealed that some of his friends had also joined in the banter since his celebration after the victory against Destanee Aiava.
“All my friends on tour…they knew I was just being myself and trying to make a laugh out of the situation,” she said.
“Then a lot of my friends were like, ‘Well, am I invited on the yacht?’ Yes, a lot of girls on tour were like, ‘Well, you’re inviting me, aren’t you?’ That’s all that matters.
“At the end of the day, you can’t please everyone. The most important thing is your friends and family and what they think.
“No one got hurt. That’s the main thing. It’s sport. I don’t think jokes are necessarily a terrible thing.”
Collins has been criticized for bragging about her wealth, particularly after confronting a lower ranked opponent like Aiava who is not in the same winning bracket.
She insisted she wasn’t trying to be disrespectful with her celebration and the comments that followed.
“I never want to hurt anyone or disrespect anyone I’m competing against, especially people I really respect,” she said.
“I’m not perfect. I’m not a perfect person, but I think in the past I definitely used to think, ‘Oh, if I do this, like this person might not like me, or if I do this. I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes or I don’t want to share my life too much because I don’t want anyone else to feel, you know, sad about theirs.’
“I think maybe with age comes this attitude of, ‘This is it, we’re going to be ourselves.’
“I’m going to accept who I am, and I’m just going to go for it.
“I think that’s something that I’m really proud of is that I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t care what people think that aren’t important to me anymore.”
