Take Five: Danielle Collins

Danielle Collins upset No. 2 seed Angelique Kerber, 6-0, 6-2, on Sunday to reach the quarterfinal of the Australian Open. Collins needed just 56 minutes to book her place in the final eight of the first major of the year.
 

Here are five moments from Collins' post-match press conference.
 

Q: A lot of players who sit up on that dais, they say, I'm not worried about what the opponent is going to do. I only focus on my game and executing my game. You are tactically very aware of how to problem solve in a match. We've seen matches where you're running and retrieving a little bit more than hitting, today seemed offensive.

Danielle Collins: I think when I was in college, my coaches did a really great job developing my game into being very versatile. I can play offensive, I can play defensive, I can play kind of middle of the road. I can retrieve. I'm a very good athlete, so I'm confident in everything that I'm doing.
 

Tactically that's one of my strengths. I like knowing what the other person is going to do. I like watching what different players do, kind of become aware of what's going to happen when I play them so that there's no surprises.
 

I really think that's something that helps me out a lot on the court, is I'm aware of what they're doing. I do think about what they're doing a little bit. I obviously want to use my strengths to the best I can. I do pay attention a good amount to what my opponent is going to do.

Q: She left the court after the first set. You seemed to be sort of smiling about that. Was it tough at all to keep the streak you had going?

Danielle Collins: Yeah, I was actually smiling because I was giving the referee a hard time about the new rule the WTA made about how you can only take one bathroom break. I kind of needed to go to the bathroom, but I was also like, Well, maybe I want to wait. I kind of hesitated.
 

Yeah, I was just asking him some questions, like if I went to the bathroom because she went to the bathroom if that was going to count towards one of my bathroom breaks. I was trying to strategically plan out when I was going to urinate.
 

Q: Do you remember last year you were ranked somewhere around 160. Now you're back here ranked 25, 24. Totally changed. I would think you're so much better. Yes?

Danielle Collins: Yeah, I think I've definitely made improvements. I also think that at the end of the day tennis is tennis. Some of my most challenging matches were at 25Ks and 60Ks, playing Sachia Vickery in the finals after 25K, having it be a three-set match. I've faced some of my toughest matches there.
 

I think the biggest thing is now I'm playing in bigger tournaments every week. I'm playing a full WTA schedule. Now I'm just playing against bigger opponents that people are more familiar with.

Q: You talked about away from tennis. You wrote a screenplay in college. Not many players have done that. What was it about? Who is going to play the lead?

Danille Collins: I didn't choose any actresses or actors for my screenplay. It's funny because the first draft was a totally different story than the second draft. The first draft was about this schizophrenia crazy cat lady living out of her van, all of the shenanigans she was getting into. I had an idea that my professor wasn't going to like it. People in the class were sharing our ideas. I thought, maybe he would be more interested in sports.
 

It's actually based off of a true story of an NFL football player that was deaf. I did a screenplay on his life.

Q: Back to the feistiness. It's a hallmark of yours. I know it can get under player's skin, fans. There's a reaction. You seem totally fine with it, kind of eat it up. Can you talk through that?

Danielle Collins: Yeah, I mean, I just love competition. Whether people are for me or against me, I'm not really fazed by it. I love it. Either way. I kind of like it more when people cheer against me sometimes because I'm like, Yeah, I want to get them back, prove them wrong. Sometimes when people are all for me, it's nice to have the support, but sometimes I'm like, I hope somebody says something negative so I can prove them wrong.