Danielle Collins swears in passionate on-court Wimbledon speech and fires back at critics

Danielle Collins swore as she hit back at the criticisms of female tennis players at Wimbledon, urging her fellow stars to “embrace” and “support” each other in defiance of being labelled as “emotional” on tour.

A straight-sets victory for Collins over Beatriz Haddad Maia set up a fourth-round clash with former world No. 1 Barbora Krejcikova on Monday, with the 30-year-old Floridian hoping to reach the quarter-finals at Wimbledon for the first time in her career.

Only once has Collins been in a Grand Slam last eight before, doing so at the 2020 French Open, but in the final year of her playing days she could be set for a strong run at the British Major with the draw blown wide open. None of the top three seeds remain in her side of the draw.

Collins, who has already confirmed that she will be retiring at the end of the season as she battles two chronic health conditions and wants to focus on her family, called on her rivals to stick together in a passionate X-rated plea.

"I try to keep everyone as entertained as possible,” she said on-court after defeating Haddad Maia. “So, that's one thing, that, throughout my career, whether it was from the beginning of graduating from college or the end of my career here now, I've always brought passion.

“We get framed as emotional and frustrated and this and that, and I'm just like: F*** that. I'm trying and I wear my heart on my sleeve and I'll always wear passion.

"I wear my emotions and I wear my heart on my sleeve and I'm someone who's not afraid to be myself and I think as women, we should really embrace that and support each other and be able to use that passion to ignite ourselves. I think that's a lot.”

Collins’ 2024 form had put her back in the world top ten, before just being pushed down to 11 before Wimbledon, but has no plans to reconsider her decision to quit professional tennis.

Instead, she is not getting too far ahead of herself at SW19 despite making it into the second week. “I've gone far in other slams, but I haven't gone far here,” she added in her post-match press conference.

“So right now I'm really excited about having some more success here. It's a goal of mine to be able to play on Centre Court in a singles match at some point. I have yet to do that in my career. So I am just trying to ride this thing out until I can play on Centre Court.

“I think the brain can obviously think far in the future, and you have goals of being a high achiever. And being an elite athlete, you're naturally driven and working towards that end result. But I think that's where so many of the highest-level athletes have gotten so good at working on their mental focus to be able to really compartmentalise.

“You obviously think about those things, but if you want to get to that, there are so many things that need to happen before.”