Resilient Collins insists retirement announcement was not a knee-jerk reaction

Danielle Collins continued her fine form by reaching the Miami semi-finals on Wednesday. Will it change the recent decision she made to retire from tennis?

Danielle Collins, Miami Open, 2024 © Julien Nouet / Tennis Majors

Ricky Dimon

March 28, 2024

At 30 years old, Danielle Collins continues to play fantastic tennis. Case in point: she is through to the semi-finals of the Miami Open after defeating Caroline Garcia 6-3, 6-2 on Wednesday afternoon.

She is playing so well that many in the tennis world are questioning why she should retire at the end of this season. That is the announcement Collins made following the Australian Open two months ago.

Was it an in-the-moment reaction to a tough result? Maybe. After all, the American led world No 1 Iga Swiatek by a double-break in the third set of their second-round match at 4-1 but could not close the deal and eventually lost 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 after more than three hours of play. Immediately thereafter Collins announced that this would be her final year on tour, and she has since indicated that such a decision was not made simply in the heat of the moment.

Instead, she insists that she recovered from the loss better than many would have expected.

we have a totally different mindset with how we deal with success and failures.
Danielle Collins

“I am a professional athlete, and I think professional athletes have a different mindset between success and failures,” Collins said after beating Garcia on Wednesday. “The reality is that [the Aussie Open loss to Swiatek] was very close. I had some opportunities. Iga played extremely well. I didn’t do a whole lot wrong; Iga played at a high level. The reality is that she’s No. 1 in the world. She has a whole list of accomplishments. I was the underdog in that match. I was not supposed to win that match.

“I think it would be worse if I lost to someone who was ranked outside of the top 200. It would be worse if I lost 0-0. It would have been worse if I would have rolled my ankle.

“So at the end of the day, yeah, the match was close — but we have tournaments every single week and I don’t think anyone’s defined by one match or one loss. It’s certainly something I haven’t been hanging my head over.

“I think people that aren’t as involved in professional sports and maybe fans probably think, ‘ouch, like, that really hurts.’ But we are really resilient; all of us are. I think our ability to recover quickly from when things don’t go our way, whether it’s a tough couple points on court, whether it’s a tough match, whether it’s injuries, whether it’s losing a loved one, we are very resilient people.

“I think that’s the biggest difference is that for professional athletes, we have a totally different mindset with how we deal with success and failures.”

LIFE BEYOND TENNIS FOR COLLINS

No, according to Collins one loss is not going to be the difference in her decision to either prolong or terminate her tennis career. It goes much deeper than that. The former University of Virginia star has plenty of interests and hobbies outside of tennis (such as a new passion for golf), plus she has been open about both her desire to start a family and complications involving those aspirations.

“I think it’s really interesting how in a lot of different situations I have had to kind of justify the reasons behind retirement,” Collins noted. “I’m living with a chronic inflammatory disease that affects your ability to get pregnant. So that’s a deeply personal situation. I’ve kind of explained that from time to time.

“This is my personal choice. This is so much more to do than just tennis and my career. I’m enjoying my career. I’m having a lot of fun; I love coming out here and competing. But at the end of the day, like, this is a really big life decision. I think that that should be pretty understandable.”

Whatever Collins does next, she needs more time to do it. Right now she doesn’t even have enough time to think about the decision that has — at least for now — already been made.

“[Tennis is] more than a 9-to-5 job, because it’s just around the clock,” she explained. “Honestly, I’m just so consumed with doing all the things I need to do to get prepared for the next day. I think I feel pretty relaxed; that could be due to a number of things. I’ve got a new hobby. I’m playing some more golf, running more, pilates — all of these different things.”

As Collins said, wanting a life beyond tennis should be pretty understandable. And it is. There’s just one problem: her retirement won’t be easy for her fans to accept when she is still winning so many matches.

If she continues to play like she is in Miami, it won’t get any easier to say goodbye.