MIAMI/STARNBERG, March 31, 2024

Danielle Collins captured the biggest title of her career by beating No. 4 seed Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan 7-5, 6-3 in Saturday’s final of the Miami Open presented by Itaú. The 30-year-old Florida native claimed her third WTA Tour career title and became the second unseeded woman to win in Miami.

Collins is the first US-American woman to take home the Miami Open title since Sloane Stephens in 2018 and the sixth US-American woman to win overall.

“I used to beg my dad to take me here and he said, ‘You can go when you play in the tournament.'”

Danielle Collins just WON the tournament!#MiamiOpen pic.twitter.com/s2bN4gvGIV

— wta (@WTA) March 30, 2024

“What a dream come true to have played at the level that I have played consistently over the last two weeks. This has been such a journey for me. 30 years old, you know, this was the finals of my first 1000, and it’s been a different journey than I think a lot of the stories that we’re familiar with,” Collins told the media.

“It’s just been amazing to go out today and to have felt the energy that I felt from the fans and literally feel like I’m playing in front of thousands of my best friends, that was just surreal. I will never forget this day because of that.

“Everywhere I looked, people were, like, Let’s go, Danielle. You can do this. The encouragement I got, it was hard for me to hide the emotion. I think these are the moments that we live for and don’t always get to have them. It was just really special.”