MELBOURNE: Polarising US veteran Danielle Collins became a viral sensation on Thursday night when she took sweet revenge on her hecklers in the Australian Open crowd.

Collins had a running battle with Aussie fans all night as they cheered for local underdog Destanee Aiava at a packed Kia Arena.

The 2022 finalist in Melbourne took vicious joy in prancing around the court, cupping her ear and blowing aggressive kisses to the crowd after her three set win to advance to the third round.

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All of that, Chris Stubbs said, was fair play.

“Danielle was getting heckled from the crowd,” the Grand Slam Daily host said on Stan Sport on Friday.

“And you know what, I don’t mind this, right? If you’re a human on court, you’re getting heckled, give a bit of love back if you win it, right? I liked that at the net, she did respect Destanee, so shook hands, that was fine. But I don’t mind this. We get sick of vanilla tennis players, right, that don’t give us anything. This is character.”

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But there was one ‘kiss my arse’ moment that Stubbs thought went “just a little bit too far.”

“The tap on the bum, perhaps not the classiest thing I’ve seen on a tennis court,” Stubbs said.

Andy Murray’s former coach, Mark Petchey, agreed.

“She leans Into her personality, 100 per cent,” Petchey said.

“She’s unapologetic about it. It’s Danielle Collins, you either love her or you hate her. She’s completely polarising, and I agree in many respects, there are too many vanilla tennis players out there.

“Danielle is not one of those. I also felt like the little tap on the bum was just taking it a little bit too far, but you know what, she’s been there for two hours getting heckled, and she did give it back in the end.”

The world No.10 continued her headline grabbing work in her on court interview and in the post-match press conference too.

Collins said the boos made her play better and had an ice cold message for her haters.

“I’m going to be out here for two and a half hours and putting up with all these people. I might as well just take the bigger pay cheque, right? And I was super happy to do that,” she said.

“And one of the greatest things about being a professional athlete is the people that don’t like you and the people that hate you – they actually pay your bills.

“It’s kind of a cool concept and my professional career is not going to last forever. And so I just remind myself every day, when I have that kind of stuff, like they’re paying my bills.

“Like every person that’s bought a ticket to come out here and heckle me or do what they do, like it’s all going towards the Danielle Collins fund. So like, yeah, bring it on. I love it.”

Collins said her and a “group of girlfriends” would put the prize money from the match towards their next five star trip to the Bahamas.

“We like boats, we like big boats, we like yachts. So, yeah, we’ll post about it (on social media) and let you guys know how it goes,” she trolled.

She will play fellow American Madison Keys in round three.