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On Saturday, Danielle Collins dominated Iga Swiatek in their second-round encounter at the Italian Open. After the match, the American had a candid discussion with broadcaster and former tennis player CoCo Vandeweghe, who predicted that Swiatek would walk away with the win in this particular match.
Collins went into her match against the Pole trailing 1-7 in their head-to-head records, with the latter being an overwhelming favorite for the win for many. However, on Saturday, the American put on an incredible display, pulling out all the stops to claim a commanding 6-1, 7-5 win over the former World No.1.
After the match, Collins sat down with the Tennis Channel for an interview, where she was informed that her friend and former player Coco Vandeweghe had bet against her for this match. Joining the discussion to defend herself, Vandeweghe said,
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“Danielle, I have to defend myself. I know you can hear me and I knew he (Prakash Amritraj) was going to throw me under the bus. But, you know, bet mgm was going one way and I had to stick with BET MGM. But that is the last time I stick with BET MGM, because DC you got to stop being so subdued and give us the real skinny on why you just dismantled Iga.”
Responding to this, Danielle Collins opened up about her mindset going into the match against Swiatek, and iterated,
“I've been trying to go on court and get focused on my game plan and try to sometimes work on, you know, not too many highs, not too many lows. Because I can be a bit of a perfectionist. And sometimes, being a perfectionist and having that self-reflection, I think is really good and ultimately gets us to, you know, competing at the highest level. But it can also be, you know, too much for us to handle sometimes. And, you know, when you go too far the other way with that, it can be negative.”
Collins went on to add that she's been focused on maintaining a positive mindset overall, and said,
“So I've been working on just trying to stay positive, stay pretty chill. I've been doing a lot of like pilates and yoga stuff. So I feel like that's probably like making me change my mindset a little bit, just like, yeah, trying to be more chill out there.”
For Iga Swiatek, this loss against Collins means that she will drop out of the top two in the WTA rankings for the first time in three years.
Danielle Collins is set to take on Elina Svitolina at the Italian Open
Danielle Collins’ campaign at the Italian Open has seen the tennis star put on multiple impressive performances. For her opening round match at the event, the American Elena-Gabriela Ruse 6-3, 6-3. After that, she went on to dominate defending champion Iga Swiatek.
Up next, Collins will now take on Elina Svitolina. For her part, Svitolina's run at the Italian Open has seen the Ukrainian get the better of Jessica Bouzas Maneiro and Hailey Baptiste.
Danielle Collins and Elina Svitolina have previously played each other thrice, with the former winning two of these encounters.
