Quote of the Day: Danielle Collins channels Elena Dementieva in Rome Iga Swiatek upset

ROME, Italy—Danielle Collins scored the biggest win of her career coda at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia on Saturday, shocking Iga Swiatek, 6-1, 7-5.

The American had to snap a six-match losing streak to dethrone the defending champion, and revealed drawing inspiration from an unlikely former player in her post-match press conference:

Q. You won without making 50% of your first serves. What do you think it was that you were doing on your second serve that made that particularly effective?

DANIELLE COLLINS: Yeah, it's like sometimes you need a warm-up before the real serve, right? You just need to get one fresh rap because you really go after it, it guess. I don't know. I think about that sometimes, too. I really am not sure.

I think sometimes I'm, like, missing some of the serves so close. Sometimes maybe just going for a little bit too much on the target, trying to really get it in one spot, but it's like too close to the line, and that's why I end up missing it by a little bit.

The same sometimes missing it where it just clips the net. I felt like Iga was doing that today on her serve, as well. It was contagious. I couldn't figure out why both of us were not making a lot of first serves.

We were both hitting pretty hard, effective second serves, so I think that plays off.

Growing up, I watched a lot of Elena Dementieva. Elena Dementieva made a career for herself not making many first serves. That was a really tough shot for her. She had so many other special parts of her game that made her the player she was. She was athletic.

Sometimes when I have a bad serving day I think about Elena Dementieva and all of the things she was able to achieve even when the serve or first serve wasn't working well for her.

It just shows you can have one area of your game not be effective one day, but if you have other skills and talent, you can apply that and really achieve some great things, so...

She's inspiring to me at times (smiling).

Q. I love an Elena Dementieva name drop in a 2025 press conference.

DANIELLE COLLINS: I loved her. She was one of my favorite players to watch.

Dementieva famously struggled with her serve most of her career, but made up for the weakness with a relentless ground game that ultimately delivered her an Olympic gold medal at the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing.

Despite a 48% first serve percentage, Collins won more than three quarters of the first-serve points she did play and struck six aces over two sets.

She was even more formidable off the return, losing just six points on Swiatek’s second serve and converted six of eight break points to hand the former No. 1 her first pre-quarterfinal loss of the season.

Might Collins serve her way to a spot on the Foro Italico podium by week’s end?