2024 Miami Open women's final preview: Elena Rybakina vs. Danielle Collins is always 'neck and neck'

Elena Rybakina vs. Danielle Collins: It would be hard to find a better promoter for this final than Danielle Collins herself.

“I’m looking forward to playing Elena,” the Floridian says. “We’ve had a lot of great matches previously, some battles. Every time I’ve played her, it’s neck and neck. Games are close, points are close; they’re long, challenging points. Big serves from both of us, big returns, big ground strokes.

“I think we’ll go out there and put on a great show and it will be a fun match.”

Sounds good, right?

Collins isn’t exaggerating. She and Rybakina have played four times; three of those matches have gone three sets, and the fourth was decided in a pair of tiebreaks. The problem for Collins is that Rybakina has won three of the four, including their most recent meeting, in Abu Dhabi in February.

Rybakina will be favored to win again on Saturday. She’s ranked 49 spots higher than Collins (No. 4 to No. 53), and she does just about everything a little better, and a little more consistently—that’s especially true of her serve. Collins has been cruising so far in Miami, and making her first WTA 1000 final at age 30, in her home state, is a great achievement. But Rybakina will be a step up in opponent quality.

Still, there are a couple of reasons to give the woman known as "Danimal" a chance. Since announcing that this will be her final season on tour, she has been playing better, freer tennis. In her last five wins in Miami, she hasn’t dropped more than three games in any set. At the same time, Rybakina, who had the tougher draw, has been forced to work hard to get here. Four of her five wins have come in close third sets. After edging Victoria Azarenka in a third-set tiebreak on Thursday, she admitted that the grind has taken a toll.

“In the beginning, these long matches were helping me get back in shape,” Rybakina said. “Now I’m not in shape, just because I’m tired of all these long matches. But overall, it was a really successful tournament no matter how I do in the final.”

Was there a hint of worry about how she’ll bounce back on Saturday in her words? She seems to be bracing herself for a letdown.

As Collins said, these two tall, powerful, aggressive players should put on a ball-striking show, and history says it will be close.

Will standard form prevail, and Rybakina walk away with her biggest title of 2024 so far? She has been playing as well as anyone this season, but doesn’t have anything huge to show for it yet.

Or will destiny prevail, with the home-state favorite winning the most important title of her career, just as she’s leaving the sport?

I’ll say Collins will give the crowd its share of thrills, but that Rybakina has one more gritty victory in her.

Winner: Rybakina