Tennis player Danielle Collins reflects on her eight-year professional career as she plans to retire after the 2024 season.
She wanted to end her career on a positive note.
She wanted to start a family.
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Especially as the season got underway.
She won the Miami Open in March and the Charleston Open in April.
She plays an aggressive and electrifying game and the media cannot seem to understand why shes walking away.
In reality, 2024 is far from her first taste of glory.
In 2020, she reached the quarterfinals at the French Open.
In 2022, she was ranked 7th in the world and made the finals at the Australian Open.
You come out here and play and you do what I do, okay?
It was the perfect response to a rude disruption.
She continued play and eventually won, adding to her 15-match winning streak.
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Tennisis a game of controlled aggression, each match reaching explosive levels of pressure.
Collins releases the tension freely.
She speaks her mind.
Some tennis fans love it.
Others, not so much.
And its like, why do I make you upset?
Because Im not living up to your expectations of how I should be?
Because thats not healthy to put on anyone.
I think women and men have different societal standards that theyre supposed to live up to.
And Im definitely more like a guy in a lot of ways.
And thats gonna rub some people the wrong way.
In some ways, because she has to be in the public eye, thats her superpower.
She learned theimportance of self-careand creating space and boundaries.
For many years as a pro player, she prioritized privacy to save her own sanity.
Im an introverted extrovert, she says.
Ive got a strong personality, and I know with that Im not for everyone.
All of us have unique qualities and things that make us who we are.
When you own it, when you get to that place, I think it can be very empowering.
All of us have unique qualities and things that make us who we are.
When you own it, when you get to that place, I think it can be very empowering.
You take steps forward and you take steps back.
Collins may understand better than most that the ups and downs are essential to making gains.
There are days that are good and others that are shockingly bad.
The2024 Olympics, she says, are the perfect example of dealing with extremes.
It was her first Olympic games and she felt honored to compete for her country alongside cherished teammates.
But the playing conditions were less than ideal.
The second set did not feel good.
I found myself down, she says.
I was getting really frustrated and thinking What am I doing wrong?
Physically, she was spent.
But mentally, she knew she could push.
The mindset switch helped her take the third set for the win.
At the lowest point of the match versus Osorio, she made the decision to go hard.
That tenacitythe unflinching ability to fight throughis unique to Collins.
This is a woman who spent five of her professional playing years dealing with untreated pain.
As she started treatment, she wrote on Instagram that the diagnosis was validating.
She was looking forward to starting treatment and felt positive about continuing to play professionally.
The disease was just another opponent to face and she made a strategic plan to fight it.
Then in 2021, she faced another medical obstacle.
It threatened her ability to become pregnant.
She dealt with some aspect of the condition daily and it was affecting her performance.
Mere months after the surgery, she won two WTA titles and followed it with her blockbuster 2022 year.
For her, balance is key and she says its a lesson for all of us.
There are days that youre gonna feel crappy, she says.
There are days that youre gonna feel tired.
But there should also be some days where you feel good, right?
You cant have every day be a challenge or it wouldnt be very fun.
You take steps forward and you take steps back.
She wants to start a family.
I have a smaller window available to get pregnant and to check that that hopefully happens.
She has other goals too: She wants to prepare for andrun a marathonat the end of this year.
Right now, thats healing.
Shes hoping to compete in the Monterey Open and then play her final Grand Slam at the US Open.
Shes looking forward to playing in New York where the notoriously rowdy crowds embrace her brand of swagger.
A series in Asia.
Shes determined to make the year-end tournament in Saudi Arabia, an event she hasnt played before.
Im still ticking some goals off my list that I havent achieved yet in my career, she says.
I think itll be really cool to do it in my final year.
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