at this year's Australian Open Daniel Collins lost a match headed to the interview room and announced flatly as ever that she was ready for another challenge with everything that I've done in my career and and where I'm at um physically mentally you know it's just kind of time for me to um move on to the next chapter and so the decision was pretty easy for me to be honest she wanted to have a family various physical challenges had taking their toll and this would be her last year on the WTA tour and this was a perfect encapsulation of both her personality and what made her such an effective player she was blunt what what she was Unapologetic you come out here and play and you do what I do okay have a little more respect she saw no reason to withdraw or withold we get framed as emotional and frustrated and this and that and I just say f it I'm I'm going for it and throughout her admirable career Colin stood for the proposition that authenticity is a form of power that boldness has its rewards if you're happy pump that fist if you're not truly sorry that winner off the frame landed in the court don't apologize if you really want to win and she did no shame in acting like it but something else happened following that announcement Collins would go on to play the best tennis of her career which is saying something a two-time NCA champ at University of Virginia she entered her first US Open in 2014 she promptly took a set off Simona Hala then the world's number two ranked player Collins would reach a career high of number seven in the world in 2022 the same year she beat eish fantech in the semis and reached the Australian Open final overwhelmingly confident performance from Danielle Collins her career was also defined by the ability to confront physical challenges most notably a case of rheumat arthritis in endometriosis that characteristically she spoke about with great openness and cander I'm living with a chronic inflammatory disease that affects your ability to get pregnant this is so much more to do than just tennis in my career still here she was in 2024 age 30 in one foot out the door except not but Daniel Collins dreams do come true she won the Miami open this spring the biggest title of her career winning 14 sets in a row to play in my home state a tournament that I used to watch on TV as a kid in front of thousands of my best friends and everybody that was pushing me to get over this hurdle today it just meant the world a week later on the clay of Charleston she won that title too it is 13 wins in a row now for Danielle Collins the following month semi-final run in Rome by July she had already won 40 matches for the season at this point I'm just trying to enjoy my time really and just take it day by day and hopefully come out on the other side and feeling nice and fresh [Music]