Danielle Collins glad 'nobody got hurt' after being booed and bounced out of Australian Open

Danielle Collins’ vacation came a little earlier than she might have anticipated. After defeating local player Destanee Aiava at Melbourne Park, the controversial American player taunted the crowd, but just days later, the crowd responded with cheers to her loss. As the No. 10 seed, Collins lost to compatriot Madison Keys with a score of 4-6, 4-6.

As the crowd returned to Rod Laver Arena after men’s top seed Jannik Sinner defeated Marcos Giron, there was a sense of foreboding in the air that Collins might be in for a match that would be relentlessly jeered from start to finish. As the crowd milled around during the break, the court announcer mentioned that Collins was up next, a pronouncement that was immediately met with a chorus of boos.

Then, the players made their official entrances, with Keys receiving the kind of rapturous applause that Ash Barty had received when she entered the women’s final three years prior. Collins entered to some hearty boos, and she grinned and waved. This was exactly the kind of atmosphere she wanted, or so she thought at the time. While Collins has stated on multiple occasions that she likes to play the villain, she is still human, and she looked anything but comfortable in her first service game. The 31-year-old immediately had a double fault, and the crowd cheered every serve that went wide or into the net.

Keys may never have received cheers like this at Melbourne Park, and probably never will again, and she took full advantage of the early break. The crowd was at times as animated as a local soccer crowd, with some even laughing directly at Collins’ errors. Somewhat surprisingly, Collins also found some allies, with a rowdy group of supporters behind her player box cheering every point she won. Even when she made mistakes, they could be heard yelling, “Love the idea, Danielle.”

Focusing on the antics in the stands does both women a disservice, as they both played some excellent tennis. After losing the first set, Collins broke Keys’ serve to start the second, only to be broken back almost immediately. She struggled with a knee problem late in the second set, which ultimately proved to be the fatal blow in her attempt to mount a comeback. Despite being booed after losing to Keys, Collins maintained that she had not lost much overall, despite being the focus of criticism over the past few days.

“Just in this tournament, there have been six different sponsorship opportunities,” she told reporters at Melbourne Park after the match. “That's a good sign for me. Obviously, as I said, every single fan has contributed to that. It’s truly a blessing.” Collins’ match with Keys did have the potential to end with some unpleasant scenes, but to their credit, the crowd was largely well-behaved, with the exception of a few sporadic hecklers. “The most important thing is that no one got hurt,” Collins said.

“Maybe some people were hurt, or some things were taken personally, but the crowd probably shouldn’t take things personally. I feel like people take life way too seriously sometimes. I think in our sport, like someone told me, the average age of people watching tennis and the fan base is 65 years old. We need to bring some entertainment to the game. I think we can try to joke around and have a laugh.”

“I don't have a huge ego about this. Honestly, I don't care what people write about me. I don't care, like, what some guy who lives in his basement writes on the internet. You know what I mean? I just want to have fun. I just want to enjoy my life and have fun with it.” Collins revealed that some of her friends had also joined in on the ribbing since her victory celebration after defeating Destinee Aiava. “All my friends on tour… they know that I'm just being myself and trying to have a humorous take on the situation,” she said.

“Then a lot of my friends were like, ‘Well, am I going to get invited on the yacht?’ Yeah, a lot of the girls on tour are like, ‘Well, you're going to invite me, right?’ That's what's important. At the end of the day, you can't please everybody. The most important thing is your friends and your family and what they think. No one got hurt. That's the main thing. It's sports. I don't think a bit of banter is necessarily a bad thing.”

Collins has been criticized for flaunting her wealth, especially when facing lower-ranked opponents like Aiava, who are on a different income level. She insists that her celebrations and subsequent comments were not meant to be disrespectful. “I never want to hurt anyone's feelings or be disrespectful to the opponents that I'm competing against, especially the ones that I really respect,” she said. “I'm not perfect. I'm not a perfect person, but I think in the past I would think, ‘Oh, if I do this, this person might not like me, or if I do that. I don't want to offend anyone, or I don't want to share my life too much because I don't want anyone to feel, you know, bad about their life’."

“I think maybe with age comes this attitude of, like, ‘This is who I am, and we’re going to be ourselves.’ I’m going to embrace who I am, and I'm going to go for it. I think one thing that I'm very proud of myself for is that I've gotten to a point where I really don't care what people think of me that don't matter to me.”