Cavaliers Now

Danielle Collins Taunts Australian Open Crowd After Beating Aussie Native

Matt Newton

Women's Tennis Association

Virginia tennis alum Danielle Collins made headlines on Thursday at the 2025 Australian Open, but not as a result of her tennis performance in a 7-6, 4-6, 6-2 victory over Australia's own Destanee Aiava, but rather for her behavior at the very end of that match, as she taunted the hostile Australian crowd with a series of mocking gestures and remarks.

The crowd, which naturally was raucous in its support of the native Aussie Aiava, was particularly boisterous in its heckling against Collins, who has long received criticism throughout her career for her feisty and competitive nature on the court. As Collins won the final point to dispatch Aiava, she immediately raised a hand to her ear and began repeating the phrase, "How about that?!" while giving a teasing grin and then blowing kisses to the Melbourne crowd, which immediately showered her in boos that lasted all through the duration of her on-court post-match interview, during which Collins continued to taunt the crowd.

As the crowd continue to boo and disrupt her interview, Collins made sure to show her sarcastic appreciation to the fans for their financial contributions to her career.

"I was thinking during the match ... as long as I'm out here, I might as well take that big fat check," Collins said in the interview. "We love a five star vacation, so a big part of that will go towards that... So thank you guys, thanks for coming out here and supporting us tonight ... Thanks, everyone. Thank you, guys. Love ya!"

Collins doubled down in her post-match press conference, which was held indoors away from the crowd.

"The people that don't like you and the people that hate you, they actually pay your bills. Obviously my professional career is not going to last forever," said Collins, who had initially planned for the 2024 season to be the last of her tennis career, before reversing course and coming back to play in 2025. A likely contributor to that decision was that Collins had the best year of her career in 2024, winning back-to-back WTA titles at the Miami Open and Credit One Charleston Open, qualifying for the U.S. Olympic Team and returning to the Top 10 of the WTA rankings.

This isn't the first time that Collins has been the main adversary of an Australian tennis crowd. Perhaps the crowning achievement of her tennis career came in January of 2022, when Collins advanced to the Australian Open Final and faced World No. 1 and Australian native Ashleigh Barty, who of course had the full support of the home crowd. Collins dropped the first set 3-6, but silenced the crowd temporarily by building a commanding 5-1 lead on Barty in the second set. Unfortunately for Collins, she could not finish the job to force a third set as Barty put together a furious rally to win the second set in a tiebreaker, becoming the first Australian to win the Australian Open since 1978.

Now, Collins will look to go on a run to return to the Australian Open Final. Up next, she'll face fellow American and the tournament's No. 19 seed Madison Keys in the third round of the Australian Open. That match will take place on Saturday, but a start time has not been announced.

Collins, who won two individual NCAA national championships in her time at the University of Virginia, isn't the only Cavalier playing in this Australian Open. Emma Navarro, the 2021 NCAA Women's Singles Champion at UVA, is the No. 8 seed in the Australian Open and has also advanced to the third round with a pair of three-set victories. Navarro, who joined Collins on the U.S. Olympic Team last summer in Paris, defeated fellow American Peyton Stearns in a highly-competitive 6-7, 7-6, 7-5 first round match and then beat China's Xiyu Wang 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 in the second round. Up next, Navarro will take on Tunisia's Ons Jabeur in a third round match on Saturday (time TBD).

Published
Matt Newton
MATT NEWTON

Matt launched Virginia Cavaliers On SI in August of 2021 and has since served as the site's publisher and managing editor, covering all 23 NCAA Division I sports teams at the University of Virginia. He is from Downingtown, Pennsylvania and graduated from UVA in May of 2021.