Australian Open News: Danielle Collins the villain and Novak Djokovic is peeved

The 2025 Australian Open is obviously still up for grabs, but key players such as Novak Djokovic and Aryna Sabalenka, among many others, still have a chance to take home the trophy. Tennis fans have also gotten to watch as married couple Gael Monfils and Elina Svitolina have continued to march onward as both reached the fourth round (so far). One storyline should not be surprising, though.

That is the one surrounding American Danielle Collins. She has never been a player afraid of having some fun with the crowd, whether the fans are for her or against her. Heck, she might enjoy it more when the crowd is rooting against her. While not having the same kind of career success as Djokovic, both players relish situations when the fans do not want them to win.

Playing Australian Destanee Aiava in the second round, the home-nation crowd was fully against Collins. She was jeered throughout the match. This was slightly odd because many times fans will simply cheer their own player instead of aggressively disrespecting the opponent. But Collins was not finished antagonizing the crowd by just defeating Aiava.

Danielle Collins ticks off Australian Open fans and Novak Djokovic is simply ticked off

She often told the crowd to get louder with their boos during the match, and even sarcastically blew them kisses. In her post-match on-court interview, however, Collins said, "You know, I was thinking during the match, I was like, 'Hmm, if I'm out here, I might as well take that big fat paycheck.' (My friend) and I love, we love a good five-star vacation, so part of that check is going to go toward that, so thank you guys, thank you for coming out and supporting us tonight."

Funny, but only if you weren't pulling against Collins. She did lose in the third round to fellow American Madison Keys, though.

Djokovic has also been ticked off, but his beef is in what happened off the court. The Serb refused to be interviewed after his fourth-round victory and instead took the microphone offered to him during what was supposed to be a short conversation with former player and current analyst Jim Courier, and Djokovic said, "Thank you very much for being here tonight. I appreciate your presence and the support. I'll see you next round. Thank you very much."

The issue appears to be that Australia's Channel 9's Tony Jones said some things on-air about Djokovic that the player did not like. Jones stated that the 24-time Grand Slam winner was past his prime. The Serb has said he will refuse to speak with Channel 9 until Jones offers an apology.

Djokovic told the media that a "famous sports journalist who works for official broadcaster, Channel 9...made a mockery of Serbian fans and also made insulting and offensive comments toward me...So I told (Craig Tiley of Tennis Australia): 'If you guys want to fine me for not giving an on-court interview, that's OK.' I'll accept that because I feel like this is something that needs to be done. That's all there is to it."

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