Resurgent Collins ready to test herself against Swiatek in Montreal

MONTREAL, Canada -- Most players lock into competition mode the moment they land at a tournament, invoking a singular focus on practice, recovery and match-play. 

Danielle Collins is not most players. 

After winning back-to-back three-set matches in qualifying to earn her main-draw spot at the Omnium Nationale Banque, Collins and her new coach, Jared Jacobs, took a timeout to take in "Barbie." 

"I loved it," Collins said. "I'm not a big movie critic, but I just think the characters and the plot were excellent, and everything that the Barbie movie stood for, I just thought it was so great.

"Growing up playing with Barbies, I could really relate to Weird Barbie. That was my doll."

Montreal: Scores | Draw | Order of play

Collins came into Montreal ranked No.48 and pining for matches. Her qualifying campaign ended up being a boon. With wins over Eugenie Bouchard and Emina Bektas under her belt, she has raced through the main draw to make her first WTA 1000 quarterfinal since 2022 Miami. She beat Elina Svitolina, Maria Sakkari and Leylah Fernandez without dropping a set. 

"For so much of my career, I traveled by myself without a coach, and I had a little bit of success doing that," Collins said, "but I think it's been huge having Jared a part of my team and being there for me and helping me evolve my game and evolve mentally.

"I feel like all of the things that he's been bringing to the table and holding me accountable for is really helping me get some better results on the court."

Collins credits Jacobs for his tactical acumen and a firm grasp of data and analytics. She trusts his game plan and appreciates his willingness to keep things light. 

"I feel like both of us really love tennis, but we also like doing other things," Collins said. "We like bowling. We like going to see the Barbie movie. Pedicures, we go and get our nails done sometimes.

"We've had a lot of great adventures. We check things out in the city. It's really a nice balance, and then when we were on court, it's so focused."

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Collins will have less than 24 hours to prepare for the challenge of facing No.1 Iga Swiatek in the quarterfinals. The two have split their two completed matches. Collins won their biggest meeting to date, beating Swiatek in straight sets in the 2020 Australian Open semifinals. Swiatek got her revenge earlier this year in a straight-sets win in Doha. 

Swiatek and Collins may have a contrast in personalities, but they do share one important thing in common, their racquets. Earlier this year, Collins switched from Babolat to Technifibre after a chance trial. 

"I actually tried one of the racquets off of the shelf, and I just went into a match and played with it, and it was great," Collins said. "I clicked with the racquet right away.

"They have been so helpful. Yesterday I had kind of a silly hiccup and I ran out of string. I didn't have enough string for the racquets today, and the Tecnifibre team was on it. They made sure that string was here by the end of the night so that the stringers could string my rackets."

A relaxed, happy and confident Collins has historically proved to be a dangerous one. If she can engineer the upset over Swiatek, she'll advance to her first WTA 1000 semifinal since 2018 and her biggest semifinal since making the Australian Open final three years ago.

It's a daunting task, but Collins was eager to take it on. And she has the confidence of knowing that her first-strike game is precisely the type of tennis that can pressure Swiatek. 

"I've played Iga twice now," Collins said. "The first time went better than the second time, so just fingers crossed that I bring my A-game and put on a good show for everyone.

"It's been a great week, and I've had a lot of matches. So, yeah, I'm hoping to keep the level up."