DANIELLE COLLINS UNDERSTANDS why everyone is questioning her decision to retire at the end of the season.
The 30-year-old American is having her best year yet on tour. She won the biggest title of her career in Miami in March and immediately followed up with the crown in Charleston -- becoming the first player to win the two tournaments back-to-back since Serena Williams in 2013. She had a 15-match win streak. Throughout the stretch, Collins has recorded victories over top-10 players Ons Jabeur, Maria Sakkari and Elena Rybakina, and has given reigning major champions Iga Swiatek and Aryna Sabalenka some of their toughest battles of the season.
Last week, Collins reached the semifinals in Rome before making it to the final in Strasbourg on Saturday. After being ranked outside of the top 70 in early February, she is up to No. 10 in the WTA rankings -- just three spots removed from her career-high mark of No. 7. On Monday, she will open play at the French Open as one of the top contenders for perhaps the first time in her career at a major.
After every title, after every victory punctuated with her signature "Come on!" yell, Collins is inundated with questions about her decision and if she is reconsidering it.
She gets it.
She knows it comes from a good place and people simply "can't wrap their heads around" why someone who is still relatively young and experiencing such success would choose to step away at what could be the prime of their career.
So, why does Collins want to end her career now?
"I want to go out really playing on a high level, and I want people to remember me for the tennis that I was playing," Collins told ESPN earlier this month. "Some players are almost forced into retirement, due to an injury and then falling out of the top 100, and that defines the end of their career. This has been really empowering in the way that I've been able to make the decision to retire on my own terms and have the ability to choose. I could choose to continue to play but I'm choosing to retire."
IT'S NOT THE first time Collins has defied expectations.
While many of her peers traveled around the world during their teenage years, participating in international junior tournaments and homeschooling to accommodate the schedule, Collins competed mostly locally in Florida and remained at a public high school.
Collins came from a family with limited financial resources -- her father Walter ran a small landscaping business until his recent retirement and her mom Cathy was a preschool teacher. Nonstop travel simply wasn't an option. She didn't even have a passport until she was 22.
But while the opportunities might not have been as plentiful, Collins' talent and drive was apparent during the events she did play. Kathy Rinaldi, the head of women's tennis with the United States Tennis Association (USTA) and the former longtime captain of the country's Billie Jean King Cup team, first watched Collins as a 13-year-old.
"She always had this fire in her," Rinaldi told ESPN. "She's still super competitive but that has always stood out, even then. She was such a great ball striker too but what I really remember [is] how very competitive she was."
Collins knew that playing at the collegiate level would provide her with the best path to becoming a professional tennis player. It has become an increasingly popular choice in recent years -- with 29 players in the main draw of the 2024 French Open who've played at the NCAA level. But it was markedly less common for those with professional dreams when Collins, the No. 2 recruit in the nation, declared to Florida as part of the 2012-2013 freshman class.
Collins transferred to Virginia ahead of her sophomore year and it was there where she thrived. She loved taking classes in theater and art and being able to do many of the typical college experiences.
But being a college student didn't diminish her competitive fire. In the bio section of her profile on the school's athletic website, "winning" was listed as what she enjoyed most, ahead of going to the beach, jet skiing and running.
"The way that I prepare, my work ethic and how I approach my day to day has not changed."Danielle Collins
And she did a lot of winning while in Charlottesville. During her sophomore campaign, she became the first player in school history to win an NCAA singles title. While some believed she would turn pro after the milestone victory, she remained at Virginia -- and won another NCAA singles title her senior year. It was only then, and with a college degree in hand, that Collins said she felt physically and mentally mature enough to become a professional athlete.
"I think college gave me the opportunity to grow and evolve in a safe place," Collins said. "Where I got to have different experiences, and enjoy not working, and have the camaraderie of being part of a team. Being a professional tennis player is a full-time job and it's lonely. ... You're responsible for everything, from logistics to having the resources around you, and not having to do that at 17 or 18 years old gave me time to grow."
Collins turned pro after graduating in 2016. She spent time on the ITF Tour before having a breakthrough WTA season in 2018, which included a surprise semifinal run at the Miami Open. In January 2019, playing in the main draw at a Grand Slam for the first time, Collins made a name for herself when she reached the semifinals at the Australian Open.
Even as she rose through the ranks -- she climbed to No. 23 after Melbourne -- Collins didn't bring on a large team to accompany her as she traveled. She still doesn't. While many top players bring a coach (or two), a physio, a hitting partner and sometimes a sports psychologist, Collins often goes alone. Even at the Miami Open earlier this year, her player box remained mostly empty throughout the entirety of the tournament. Rinaldi and others contemplated coming in the later rounds, but didn't want to mess up the vibes or change her routine.
She has worked with different coaches over her career, and most simply aren't able to travel 35 weeks a year. Instead of having her own physio, she typically relies on those provided on tour by the WTA -- even thanking them in her victory speech in Miami this year -- and hits with fellow players at practice.
"Sometimes it's nice to have someone to talk to, to bounce ideas off of, but I'm used to it now and I feel more comfortable traveling solo," Collins said. "Because I didn't have the luxury of having a coach to travel with me as a junior, I had to learn how to do a lot of that problem-solving on my own at a young age and figure out how to break down an opponent's game and figure out, 'OK, what are their strengths and weaknesses? How can I go into this match and play my best tennis?'"
While somewhat unorthodox, Collins' approach proved successful.
In 2020, following the pandemic break, she reached the quarterfinals at the French Open. In 2021, she won her first WTA title at Palermo on clay -- and then won again the following week at the Silicon Valley Classic. In 2022, she reached her first -- and only -- major final at the Australian Open, where she faced home favorite and then-No. 1 Ashleigh Barty in front of a raucous crowd.
Those who knew her weren't surprised to see it, though. Ryan Harrison, the 2017 French Open doubles champion, had trained with Collins at IMG Academy as teenagers and his father Pat was her coach.
"Danielle just always had that mentality that she was going to go in and she was going to be one of the best in the nation in college and then take that route -- her route -- into the pros, and she knew it would work out," Harrison said. "There are a handful of people in the world who could have handled facing an Australian player in that environment, but I knew she could and wouldn't get mentally broken. She would just keep fighting."
After losing the first set, Collins appeared undeterred. She jumped out to a 5-1 lead in the second set -- all but silencing the crowd -- before Barty stormed back to force a tiebreak. Collins ultimately lost 6-3, 7-6 (2), but proved she belonged on the sport's biggest stages.
COLLINS RETURNED TO Melbourne two years later to open the 2024 season. She was coming off a somewhat disappointing 2023, in which she never advanced past the third round at a Slam and did not reach a final since the clash with Barty.
But Collins looked as if her confidence and form had returned in a second-round showdown against Swiatek, as she pushed the No. 1-ranked player to the brink of her earliest major exit in four years. But Swiatek prevailed, and Collins made a staggering announcement during her news conference soon after.
"This is going to be my last season, actually, competing," Collins told shocked reporters. "I don't really know exactly when, but this will be my last season and I'm really looking forward to that."
The reveal almost instantly brought out doubters. Sloane Stephens questioned the decision later that day in her own postmatch news conference.
"Tennis is so up and down, and it's so emotional," Stephens said. "I think there were probably 10 times last year when I wanted to retire. It's a normal feeling. You're just, like, 'Why am I out here? What am I doing this for? Why am I playing?' I don't know if it was that, or if this is truly what she has been planning."
According to Collins, the decision had not been a rash one and had been made months earlier.
During her preseason training in November and December, she spent time talking about it with her family and friends. She has a desire to start a family and has faced health challenges in recent years with endometriosis and rheumatoid arthritis. Those reasons, as well as the nonstop demands of life on tour, made Collins feel at peace knowing that 2024 would be her last year as a professional tennis player.
Harrison was among those Collins confided in, as he too was preparing for the end of his own playing career due to years of debilitating injuries. Collins was by his side in what ended up being his final match when the longtime friends teamed up in mixed doubles at the US Open in September. He's since started coaching and worked with Collins at the US Open and on and off since.
"I knew where her headspace was," Harrison said. "It wasn't something that she just decided one day -- she had been bouncing that idea around for a while and really thinking about it."
But the decision didn't lessen her desire to win. Perhaps the opposite. Knowing it was the last time she would be playing in each tournament fueled her even more.
And it hasn't changed her approach on court. She's heard the speculation. No, she's not playing freer or with nothing to lose. The pressure is still very much there.
"I know a lot of people have reverted to saying that," Collins said. "Because maybe they're not fully able to articulate their ideas behind the improvements that I've made technically and tactically and how that's contributed to my success. But I think I go into the matches the same exact way. The way that I prepare, my work ethic and how I approach my day to day has not changed."
Collins said the only thing that might be different is that she's trying to play more tournaments this year, knowing that she will have plenty of time to rest once the season is over.
While other players, such as Rafael Nadal and Dominic Thiem, are desperately fighting for a chance to play a final season before their bodies fully give out, Collins is able to give everything she has, one last time.
And she has goals she wants to achieve in her final few months on the tennis court.
She's the third-ranked U.S. woman, which has put her in the Olympic conversation for the first time. The top four American women at the conclusion of the French Open are expected to secure spots on the team.
"Anytime you have the opportunity to represent your country is an honor, and representing your country at the Olympics truly is as prestigious as it gets," Collins said. "It would be a really exciting opportunity to be able to add that to my résumé."
Collins also hopes to qualify for the first time to the year-end WTA Finals, which will be held in Saudi Arabia this season.
ON THE COURT, Collins has become known for her feisty attitude, frequent yells and occasional outbursts -- sometimes targeted at heckling spectators -- in addition to her fierce competitive will. But Rinaldi doesn't believe that's what will be remembered most about her.
"Danielle always wants to do well, not just for herself but for her teammates," Rinaldi said. "I know from sharing a bench with her for all these years she just would leave everything out there on the court, and you can't ask for anything more than that. But it's more than that, she's been such a great mentor to younger players coming up behind her. I think that's ultimately part of her legacy in this game."
Harrison remembers Collins' tough loss to Elise Mertens at the 2023 US Open in the second round and how, despite her enormous disappointment, she put her feelings on hold for him.
"Being the person she is, and knowing we had our mixed doubles match later that day," Harrison recalled, "She quickly turned it around and made it a special afternoon where I could have a moment where I could put my career into a little bit of reflection mode. She's so kindhearted and that's just who she is."
Collins doesn't know exactly what she's going to do next, other than running a marathon with her boyfriend likely at year's end, and going on an extended vacation to South Africa, where she hopes to surf and go on a safari. But she isn't allowing herself to think too much about the future yet. She still has tennis to play and doesn't want to get distracted.
And she knows how she wants to be thought of once she hangs up her racket.
"I wasn't a child prodigy, I wasn't someone that grew up with a silver spoon in my mouth and had the luxury of getting to do this at a young age," Collins said. "I was somebody that left it all out on the court, that's for sure. Never gave up. I hope people remember my work ethic and all of the hard work I put in to get here."
