American tennis legend Serena Williams was absolutely delighted over Danielle Collins’ Miami win as the former 23-time Grand Slam champion left two telling reactions on the 30-year-old’s Instagram posts.
On Saturday, 30-year-old Collins achieved the biggest win of her career and lifted the most important title of her career after beating Elena Rybakina 7-5 6-3 for her first WTA 1000 title in Miami.
In Miami, Collins had an absolute fairytale of a run as her biggest title came just when is about to walk away from pro tennis. Collins, 30, previously announced her intention to retire in 2024 during this year’s Australian Open.
“So happy love this and you,” former eight-time Miami champion Williams wrote in the comment section of Collins’ Instagram post.
Responding to Williams, Collins wrote: “@serenawilliams I love you more!!!”
In another post that was celebrating Collins’ first WTA 1000 win in Miami, Williams had another delightful response.
Collins’ dream Miami run makes Williams happy
Throughout the entire tournament, many were supporting Collins and hoping she would pull off some kind of a crazy run. In the end, Collins did exactly that as she won the title with just one lost set, and her run to the title included impressive straight-set wins over 2022 Wimbledon champion Rybakina and 2022 WTA Finals champion Caroline Garcia.
After clinching the Miami title, Collins appeared to be a bit in disbelief over how everything fell into place for her in Miami as she described her run at the tournament as “a dream come true” and something “surreal.” Also, the 30-year-old American acknowledged the outstanding support from fans she received during the tournament.
“Yeah, I mean, what a dream come true to have played at the level that I have played consistently over the last two weeks. This has been such a journey for me,” Collins said in her post-Miami final press conference.
“30 years old, you know, this was the finals of my first 1000, and it’s been a different journey than I think a lot of the stories that we’re familiar with.
“Yeah, it’s just been amazing to go out today and to have felt the energy that I felt from the fans and literally feel like I’m playing in front of thousands of my best friends, that was just surreal. I will never forget this day because of that.
“Everywhere I looked, people were, like, Let’s go, Danielle. ‘You can do this.’
“The encouragement I got, it was hard for me to hide the emotion. I think these are the moments that we live for and don’t always get to have them. It was just really special.”
Collins came out wanting to enjoy the Rybakina final to the fullest
While Collins was playing for the biggest title of her career, she was determined not to let pressure or expectations negatively impact her performance or ruin her big moment. Instead, Collins came out to the court wanting to enjoy every piece of the final and see where would that take her.
That mentality certainly did well for Collins, who was able to play the same game that she was showing earlier in the tournament.
In the first set, Collins did extremely well in the most important moments as she saved four break points in the seventh game and one more break point in the 11th game for a 6-5 lead. Then, the American bagged the first set after claiming the first break of the match in the 12th game.
At the start of the second set, Collins was 2-0 up but Rybakina managed to get the break back in the third game. A couple of games later, Collins saved two break points in the seventh game before breaking Rybakina again in the eighth game to go 5-3 up. In the ninth game, Collins felt some nerves when serving for the match but again did well in the key moments as she saved two break points before realizing her fourth match point.
“I really think, like, part of the reason why I played so well and did a good job today was because I had that mentality of, like, I’m going to enjoy every minute of this. This is my last year, this is my last season, and these are some of my final events. I want to remember these moments,” Collins said.
Collins, who was ranked at No. 53 when Miami started, is also set for a big rankings boost as she will improve to No. 22 in the world on Monday.
While Collins is now a WTA 1000 champion and on the brink of being ranked inside the top-20 again, she underlined in her press conference that her latest success wasn’t changing anything in her retirement plans.
