Raw and emotional, Danielle Collins announced last week that while enduring the hurricanes that destroyed her home state of Florida, she was also working through some issues relating to her endometriosis and other health challenges.
Ultimately, Collins has learned it will take some time before she is in the position to realise her dream of starting a family.
She has therefore decided to play in 2025, despite announcing at AO 2024 that she would be retiring at the end of this season.
Such honesty and authenticity has made her a popular role model, adored by many fans. This includes Australian tennis great Casey Dellacqua, who responded to the bittersweet news of Collins’ delayed retirement on the latest episode of The AO Show Weekly podcast.
“I think from my perspective, one of the storylines throughout 2024 was around Danielle Collins,” Dellacqua said.
“She’s entered in the United Cup, so we’ll see her there with Team USA, and she’s going to go again. I’m excited to see her back on tour in 2025.”
Dellacqua believed playing without the weight of expectations had seemed to unlock some of Collins’ best tennis this year.
“The fact that she was pretty firm and set on that (retirement) call, (then) had a phenomenal year and played some of her best tennis, I think sometimes when you play free, you make that decision, the type of tennis she was able to produce (can be better),” Dellacqua said.
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The excitement at Collins’ Australian summer return was echoed on the same podcast episode by Simon Rea, former coach of Nick Kyrgios and Sam Stosur.
“I think when she’s at her best, she doesn't take it backward step,” added Rea, now senior manager of game analysis at Tennis Australia.
“The best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour. I think what comes to mind when I think about Dani Collins, (is that she is a) phenomenal competitor.”
Collins will begin her 2025 in Perth at the United Cup, representing Team USA alongside Coco Gauff and Taylor Fritz.
The Australian Open is a happy hunting ground for the American, a tournament at which she reached the final in 2022 after progressing to the semifinals in 2019.
“Dealing with endometriosis and fertility is a massive challenge for many women and something that I am actively traversing, but I am fully confident in the team I am working with. It is just going to take longer than I thought,” Collins posted on Instagram last week.
“So, the DANIMAL story has not reached its conclusion. I will be back on tour in 2025.”
Given the rich vein of form she discovered earlier in 2024, this declaration will no doubt reverberate on the WTA Tour.
Collins won the biggest title of her career on home soil at the WTA 1000 event in Miami, before backing that up with victory in Charleston.
She built a 15-match winning streak – at one stage winning 17 consecutive sets – and by reaching the Strasbourg final she had won 20 of her past 22 matches.
READ MORE: Collins recalling Agassi in late-career surge
Impressively, the former world No.7 briefly returned to the top 10, and more recently reached the fourth round at Wimbledon – her best result at SW19 – and the quarterfinals at the Paris 2024 Olympics.
She is a sparkling 42-16 this season.
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