"I am trying to be the best person that I can be": Danielle Collins hoping to 'move on' from Paris Olympics incident with Iga Swiatek

America’s Danielle Collins is hoping that she and Poland’s Iga Swiatek will ‘move on’ from their past on-court trouble and become ‘good competitors’. Both players were involved in a heated argument on the court during the Paris Olympics in the quarterfinal of the singles category.

In that contest, the former world number one came out on top after Collins was forced to retire from the contest with the final score of 6-2, 1-6, 4-1. The 31-year-old after that match, talked to the media and explained what she said to the five-time Grand Slam winner, which left her in disbelief on the court.

“I told Iga she didn’t have to be insincere about, you know, my injury,” she said back then. “There’s a lot that happens on camera, and there are a lot of people with a ton of charisma and come out and are one way on camera and another way in the locker room. And I just haven’t had the best experience, and I don’t really feel like anybody needs to be insincere. They can be the way that they are. I can accept that, and I don’t need that fakeness.”

Since that contest, a lot has changed as Swiatek has not only lost the number one spot in women’s tennis, but she has also changed her coaching staff and has served a one-month ban after testing positive in a doping test. She recently participated in the United Cup, where Poland lost to the USA in the final. Collins has now been quoted in a report by Tennis 365, in which she expressed optimism that both players will ‘move on’ from what happened in the past.

“Look these things happen sometimes on court,” she said. “And I was obviously in a lot of physical pain during that match and felt uncomfortable in that interaction,” explained Collins. “Of course, we all would do things differently, but hopefully we can just move on from it, be good competitors and try to be the best people. Certainly I am trying to be the best person that I can be and I fall short of that sometimes you know, people make mistakes. Yeh, so hopefully we can focus on playing some good tennis and try to move past it.”