Danielle Collins makes startling injury confession after sensational Miami Open win
Danielle Collins has revealed she feared she might not get through her first match at the Miami Open due to injury, but she ended the tournament winning the biggest title of her career.
The 30-year-old, who grew up in St Petersburg near Tampa, delighted the partisan home crowd as she produced a determined display to see off world No 4 Elena Rybakina 7-5 6-3, before breaking down in tears.
Unseeded Collins, runner-up to Ashleigh Barty at the 2022 Australian Open, had won 12 straight sets after losing her first of the tournament and continued to dig deep as she saw off Rybakina, who had reached a second straight Miami Open final.
It was a stunning performance from Collins, especially after she revealed she feared she would not be able to play in what will be her last Miami Open before retiring from tennis later this year due to an injury she picked up in her previous tournament.
“Two weeks ago looked a little different,” Collins told reporters. “I was coming off a back injury that happened in Austin.
“I was devastated not to be able to finish out that tournament because that’s also a really important event for me. It’s one of my home tournaments and one of my favourite events of the year.
“Then I went to Indian Wells and had multiple days off in a row. I had a few days, not exaggerating, I literally couldn’t walk.
“I was having to have my boyfriend help me a lot. It was awful. There were a lot of tears about, oh, my gosh, I have played all these tournaments, I have worked so hard for this, and now we’re at Indian Wells and Miami and this is happening, like, why?
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“Luckily with I think the help of the physical therapy and chiropractor we were able to kind of get it under control and make some adjustments too with some of my training and recovery and got it to a place where it was more manageable.
“After Indian Wells I was able to get a couple good days of practice. I felt pretty confident, but the amount of time that I was practising on court and the type of drills that we were doing was not enough.
“I was, like, this is going to be hard going into Miami. I don’t feel like we had a practice where I physically really exerted myself. That made me a little nervous.
“When I came out in the first round I had a tough match against Pera, a really tricky player, a lefty. I was happy to really get through that. But I also did a great job of putting all that fear of, oh, am I doing enough, am I not doing enough, am I too injured, am I too this, too that?
“I think so much of what we do we’re like perfectionists out there. We want perfect preparation, we want the perfect warm-up, we want the perfect practice, we want to feel perfect all the time.
“I think what makes some of these players the best in the world is that they learn how to play around those things.
“That’s the thing that I have learned the most this tournament is, okay, it’s never going to be 100% and you’ve got to figure out a way to, even though you have those challenges, work through it and get through it.”
Collins insisted her Miami Open win will not change her plans to retire from tennis later this year, even though this tournament win will fire her up 31 places in the WTA rankings to No 22 on Monday.
