MELBOURNE: Casey Dellacqua has come to the defence of ‘villain’ Danielle Collins as the American prepares to face the ire of the Rod Laver Arena crowd in a Saturday night blockbuster against Madison Keys.

Collins embraced the role of Australia’s enemy No.1 as she taunted the thousands of fans who were giving their support to Destanee Aiava in a late night match on Showcourt Arena on Thursday.

The former Australian Open finalist, who lost to Ash Barty in the 2022 decider, survived a close match after dropping the second set and appeared to thrive on the energy of a crowd that was clearly against her.

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She dominated headlines with a provocative post match celebration before doubling down in a somewhat salty on court interview that attracted more boos and a snarling press conference.

Critics were lining up to pot the 31-year-old for what many viewed as petulance, yet Dellacqua saw Collins’ behaviour differently, backing her for “having a go” at the crowd.

“Having been a player myself I guess my perspective’s quite different,” Dellacqua told Wide World of Sports’ The Morning Serve.

“And I do like having different personalities shown out on court. And players, we all as humans deal with situations so differently anyway, so look, I thought it was all a bit tongue in cheek, she just, I don’t know, gave it back to the crowd and part of me enjoyed watching her give it back to the crowd a little bit.

“As I said, the crowd was doing it back to her – maybe I’m sitting on the fence a little bit but I just think she deserved the win, the match was played in good respect and she let the crowd know about it.”

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Dellacqua added that the atmosphere played into Collins’ natural “personality”, pointing out that the world No.11 showed “respect” where it counted, behaving appropriately towards Aiava, specifically at the net after match point, even as she sent the crowd into a frenzy.

“That is who she is. I’ve seen her play for many many years and look, if we break the match down, the match was actually played in quite good respect,” Dellacqua said.

“I thought it was a really high quality match, the handshake was lovely, Destanee played great, she (Collins) played great, it was just the engagement from Danielle with the crowd.

“And look, you know, she gave it a little bit to the crowd at the end of the match and they were booing her, you know what I mean – she’s giving it to them, they’re booing her, so I guess in some ways if the crowd is giving it to her and booing her it’s not a bad thing to give it back.”

During her playing days, Dellacqua was known as one of the most polite players on the court and rarely got into any altercations, but having mixed with a huge range of personality types she said it was healthy for tennis to have so-called villains as a foil to the local heroes.

She said she expected Collins to continue to thrive if crowds at the Australian Open continue to show her hostility, although with her next opponent being American, there’s no guarantee that will be the case.

“She’s got the personality, she does it everywhere. It’s not uncommon to see Danielle Collins do what she did the other night,” Dellacqua said.

“That’s who she is and that’s her personality and she can deal with it – she doesn’t care, so I don’t know, good on her.”