Danielle Collins' final backhand winner Monday afternoon, on a hard court in Tulsa, seemed to ricochet off every net and cranny in her hometown a time zone away.
It skidded off the clay at the St. Petersburg Tennis Center, bounced off a baseline at Isla Del Sol Yacht Club, skipped across a doubles alley at the Vinoy.
Collins' game, a fusion of baseline power and grit, was molded in all those venues, not to mention the local parks where her dad would bring her in search of stern competition. In a sport where some are nurtured exclusively at one club, Collins' chops were sharpened by a community.
On Monday, Collins, a 2012 Northeast High graduate who won a state title there in 2010, made her community beam — again.
Collins dispatched nemesis Hayley Carter of North Carolina 6-3, 6-2 in the NCAA women's singles championship. Two Memorial Days before, she won her first national title as a sophomore.
"They always have a saying it takes a village to build a champion, and I truly believe that," said Scott Dei, among the litany of area coaches who worked with Collins through the years.
Collins is the seventh woman to win two NCAA singles titles. She never dropped a set in six tournament matches, and was extended to a tiebreaker only once.
Her meeting against Carter was her fourth of the season. Carter won in straight sets in early March in Charlottesville, Va., but their two ensuing meetings — team matches at the ACC tournament and NCAA tourney's Round of 16 — weren't completed.
"I knew before I went out on the court with her that I was going to have to play my absolute best because of the type of competitor she is and how many balls she runs down and the fact she never will give you a free point," said Collins, the tournament's No. 2 overall seed who is soon to turn pro. "She really makes you earn it."
It was that type of sturdy opposition Wally Collins, 77, who still runs a landscape company, sought for his daughter upon realizing her potential around age 6. Dance and swimming didn't click with Danielle, but tennis seemed the conduit through which she could channel her peskiness and athletic drive.
"She was kind of like a terror on the court with the other kids," Wally recalled with a chuckle. "Kids get to a point where they don't like to lose, so we had to find somewhere else for her to play."
Wearing out the transmission on his blue Chevy pickup, Wally hauled Danielle to seemingly every area slab with a net, from Seminole Lake Country Club to the St. Pete Tennis Center, Clearwater's McMullen Tennis Complex to Isla Del Sol.
"When I was growing up my parents couldn't really afford to send me to a lot of different tennis camps, so they did the best they could," Collins said Monday after a victory meal of steak tacos and chocolate cheesecake.
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Explore all your options"But a lot of times, my dad would just take me to the park and we would find different people that were able to play practice matches with me or hit with me. So I got a good taste of everything. I played with a lot of big-league players who were nice enough to play sometimes with a 10-year-old little girl."
Today, that spunky prepubescent has grown into her community's pride.
"With Danielle, it's almost like the whole city of St. Petersburg, the whole city tennis group has kind of had a hand in her improvement," Isla Del Sol tennis director Kevin Quay said.
Wally Collins concurs. "It absolutely took a village."
UF duo wins: Florida's Brooke Austin and Kourtney Keegan won the national championship in doubles, defeating California's Maegan Manasse and Denise Starr 6-2, 6-0 in Tulsa. … UCLA's Mackenzie McDonald won the men's singles title then teamed with Martin Redlicki to win the doubles crown.
Contact Joey Knight at jknight@tampabay.com. Follow @TBTimes_Bulls.