Danielle Collins unleashed her anger at an umpire en route to her semi-final win over Anhelina Kalinina in Strasbourg, with the American tennis star demanding to talk to the tournament supervisor as part of a fiery exchange.
Aryna Sabalenka is the only person to have beaten Collins since early March. Aside from those two defeats, Collins has been in imperious form, notching back-to-back tournament victories in Miami and Charleston.
World No 2 Sabalenka dismissed the 30-year-old in Madrid and Rome, but Collins has been back to her best since action got underway in Strasbourg earlier this week.
Without so much as dropping a set, the Florida-born competitor has dealt with Katerina Siniakova, Clara Buel and now Kalinina, as the Ukrainian was on the wrong end of a 7-6 6-2 scoreline on Friday.
But the outing wasn’t wholly positive for Collins, who raged at the umpire towards the end of the first set when she requested that he step down to look at a ball mark on the court.
“Can you get me the tournament supervisor?” she began. “I’ll have a chat with her. You’re really pushing it. Do you know what? Regardless, I’m going to complain about it and it’s going to be the same outcome. So that’s fine, if you want to be like that…”
The umpire responded by letting Collins know that carrying out her request to contact the tournament supervisor would hold up the game. The American continued: “Delay? Ok. She’s literally in the stands. I don’t think it’s much of a delay, honey.”
Putting the frustration behind her and kicking on to convincingly win the second set, Collins punched her ticket to a mouth-watering all-American Strasbourg final against fourth seed Madison Keys on Saturday.
Following her win over Kalinina, Collins said: “I was excited to come here after Rome and playing some great tennis on clay … having some great matches under my belt this clay-court season and playing some tough opponents. It was a tough battle.
“I definitely felt for [Kalinina] today, having to play two matches in one day … and I thought she did really well, moving well, hitting her shots well. I felt for her in the end, because I think the fatigue started to kick in a little bit. It’s sad when that happens, because she had such a great tournament.”
