Danielle Collins Contradicts Past Comments With Cold Handshake To Iga Swiatek
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Danielle Collins caused a stir with her frosty handshake to Iga Swiatek at the 2025 United Cup before changing her profile picture to poke fun at the incident. Those actions contradict past comments about not wanting to escalate tensions with Swiatek.
Collins was set to retire at the end of 2024 to have a family but reversed that decision. Fans will be treated to her aggressive tennis and unique personality for at least one more season on the WTA Tour.
The American has been open about struggling with endometriosis, a condition that makes it more difficult to become pregnant. Collins is working through that while continuing her tennis career.
Hopefully, Collins will be able to have children, but many fans are delighted that she has elected to continue her tennis career. It gives the 31-year-old an opportunity to build on a memorable 2024 season.
Collins won the biggest title of her career at the Miami Open, the former Australian Open runner-up's home tournament. After seven victories in Florida, she beat Elena Rybakina to secure her maiden WTA 1000 title.
Instead of taking a break, Collins had further success the following week on the green clay courts of the Charleston Open, obtaining the title without dropping a set at the tournament.
That run of form Collins managed during March and April at the Miami Open and Charleston Open was among the best levels seen on the WTA Tour in recent months. Her powerful groundstrokes, especially on the backhand side, were almost unstoppable.
Collins had solid results for a few months afterward before the trajectory of her season changed after retiring with an injury against Swiatek in the quarterfinal of the women's singles at the Olympics. She never fully recovered from that setback.
When Swiatek asked Collins about the injury at the net afterward, the American gave a heated response. She accused the Pole of being insincere and said she did not need to feign caring about the issue.
That incident made global headlines. In an interview with Canal+, Collins admitted she could have acted differently but insisted it was an incident both women should move on from.
"These things happen sometimes on-court. I was obviously in a lot of physical pain in that match and felt in a lot of pain in that interaction. Of course, I think in hindsight we would all do things differently right?"
"Hopefully, we can just move on from it and be good competitors and good people. People make mistakes. Yeah, hopefully we can focus on just playing some good tennis and move past it."
Those words contrast sharply with how Collins acted before Team USA's United Cup final against Swiatek's Team Poland. She deliberately did not look the four-time French Open champion in the eye when they shook hands.
Rather than feeling bad about doing that, Collins changed her profile picture on Instagram to her facial expression when shaking hands with Swiatek and used the caption "New year, same me," clearly showing she felt no guilt about the frosty handshake.
Collins is one of the most entertaining players in the sport to watch. However, it may have been her who was being insincere during the interview with Canal+ about wanting to move on from the incident at the Olympics.
