Pick of the Day: Danielle Collins vs. Elena Rybakina, Miami Open

On Saturday, March 30, Danielle Collins will look to finish her story when she takes on Elena Rybakina in the Miami Open final. Collins, who is retiring after the 2024 season, is playing in the first 1000-level title of her career, and she’s doing it in her home state of Florida. She will have some serious crowd support as she looks to win the biggest title of her career. When you combine that with the fact that Collins has looked lights out in this event, it’s hard not to like the American as a underdog moneyline play.

Rybakina is undoubtedly one of the best players in the world, but she even noted that she’s still struggling with her conditioning after an illness took her out of Indian Wells. Well, she’ll need to be at the level that won her Wimbledon in 2022 in order to beat this version of Collins.

Rybakina can be one of the best servers on the planet, as evidenced by her 79.3% hold percentage being the second-highest in the sport over the last 52 weeks. And her hold percentage is up at 81.2% since the start of 2024. But Collins has a top-10 break percentage on the WTA Tour in 2024. She is doing an incredible job of flipping things around and putting pressure on the server. That has gone up a notch in Miami, where she has broken her opponent at least twice in 10 of the 13 sets she has played.

It’s hard to imagine Collins not finding at least a little success returning the Rybakina serve. She has been too dialed in not to. And returning isn’t a huge strength for Rybakina, so she might not be able to take advantage of Collins having an uninspiring serve. Collins has also figured out ways to hold all week, despite that not being a strength of hers. It’s hard to win five matches in a row—against quality opponents—in straight sets without doing so.

Collins should also have a slight advantage when it comes to the baseline. She’s just so powerful from both wings, capable of hitting opponents of the court when she’s in a groove. Of course, Collins can occasionally lose herself and rack up unforced errors. That comes with the territory of playing a high-variance style.

But she has been untouchable all week, and it just feels like the stars are aligning for her to have a massive breakthrough before riding off into the sunset. So, I’d rather take a shot on Collins at plus-money odds than back Rybakina with significant juice.

Pick: Collins ML (+160 - 0.5 units)