All of us have been there. You’re engaged in competition, and the commotion of the fight causes you to lose track of time and match score.
Danielle Collins, an American, unfortunately, made a mistake during a key third-set tiebreak on Wednesday in her second-round encounter at the Australian Open.
The No. 13 seed faced off against Karolina Muchová of the Czech Republic in a thrilling contest in which she barely dropped the first set before roaring back to win it.
The decisive frame of the final set had to be decided by a tiebreak since it was so close between the two players.
When sprinting to a 6-3 lead, Collins celebrated by dropping her racket and lifting her hands over her head in a “thank you” gesture after Muchová’s forehand went out of bounds, earning Collins her seventh point.
The only issue is that Collins seems to have forgotten the new rule that states that if a grand slam match goes to six games all in the final set, the winner is the first player to win 10 points with a lead of two or more points.
Collins was perplexed as to why no one was moving after taking up her racket and proceeding to the net to shake hands with Muchová and the umpire as is customary.
The umpire informed the runner-up from the previous year that she needed three more points to win, which made Collins smile widely as she returned to serve.
During the on-court interview, Collins said, “I was a bit ashamed.” The third set in a Grand Slam match was the first time I had to play a tiebreak.
“I genuinely believed that the game was finished. At least you didn’t faceplant, I reassured myself. I needed to maintain perspective. I could need some practice with the scoring as I’m not very good at it.
Fortunately for Collins, she was able to easily clinch the final three points, winning 6-7(1-7) 6-2 7-6(10-6) and enabling her to enjoy a legitimate victory this time after a two hours and 55 minute struggle.
Collins is not the only person to make the mistake of forgetting that 10 points decide tiebreakers; Kaia Kanepi and Zheng Qinwen also did it at the beginning of last year.
Elena Rybakina, the No. 22 seed, will now be Collins’ opponent on Friday in the third round.