Danielle Collins’ beef with Iga Swiatek: From ‘moving past fakeness’ to ‘new year, same me’
There appears to be no end to the one-sided feud between Iga Swiatek and Danielle Collins with the latter aiming another dig at the Pole following the United Cup.
The controversy started at the 2024 Paris Olympics when Collins accused the then world No 1 of being “insincere” after retiring from their quarter-final clash before later stating that it was time to “move past it”.
Yet a few months later she has had another snide retort following the pair’s now infamous handshake at the United Cup.
The United States and Poland met in the final in Sydney and Collins was seen rolling her eyes when she shook Swiatek’s hand ahead of play. Collins later shared a screenshot of that particular moment on her Instagram Story with the caption: “Didn’t know if you guys noticed this but… New year, same me.”
It was soon turned into her profile picture on the social media platform.
But their differences date back to the Olympics last August when Swiatek came away with a 6-1, 2-6, 4-1 win following her opponent’s retirement.
It was a fiery encounter as Collins was upset when the Pole held up her hand to hold up serve with the American telling her rival to “play at the server’s pace”. She later accidentally hit Swiatek with a ball.
The 30-year-old stated after the match: “I told Iga she didn’t have to be insincere about, you know, my injury.
“There’s a lot that happens on camera, and there are a lot of people with a ton of charisma and come out and are one way on camera and another way in the locker room.
“And I just haven’t had the best experience, and I don’t really feel like anybody needs to be insincere.
“They can be the way that they are. I can accept that, and I don’t need the fakeness.”
But Swiatek was left confused by Collins’ accusations with the feud appearing to be very one-sided as she didn’t get drawn into the controversy.
“I’ve never done anything unkind in her direction,” the Pole said. “I don’t know what she meant. I wanted to congratulate her on a successful career, because it’s her last year on tour. We’ve never even had any interaction that would have caused that.”
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Collins initially stated at the start of 2024 that she would retire at the end of the year, but then changed her mind later in the year.
She was one of the alternates for November’s WTA Finals – where Swiatek also competed – and told CANAL+ that she was ready to move on.
“These things happen sometimes on court. I was obviously in a lot of physical pain during that match and felt uncomfortable in that interaction,” the American said.
“Of course, I think in hindsight, would do things differently, but hopefully we can just move on from it and just be good competitors, be good people and just try to be the best people we can be.
“I certainly try to be the best person that I can be and I fall short of that sometimes and people make mistakes. Hopefully we can just focus on playing some good tennis and move past it.”
But she clearly has not “moved past it” with her “new year, same me” caption.
