Britain’s rising doubles pair Freya Christie and Ali Collins reflect on their electric start to the 2023 season
The British tennis scene is booming with doubles talent, with players like Neal Skupski, Joe Salisbury, Jamie Murray and Lloyd Glasspool regularly headlining ATP tournaments and Alicia Barnett and Olivia Nicholls breaking into the WTA Top 100 after a breakthrough year in 2022.
Now, Freya Christie and Ali Collins are the latest Brits to break onto the scene, having picked up six doubles titles in as many months on the ITF tour and are now within touching distance of the WTA doubles top 100.
We caught up with the in-form duo to gain an insight into their recent success, how they came together to form a doubles partnership and what they’re looking to achieve this year as they enter their first full season together.
“We decided to play an ITF 25k together last summer, and instantly had great chemistry on and off the court,” said Christie. “We felt this could lead to a good partnership in the future, so naturally, we continued our partnership into the rest of the season.”
The all-British duo have already picked up two W60 doubles titles so far this year in Grenoble and at our Sunderland event. We asked Christie and Collins what the difference has been for them this year and what extra preparations they put in during the off-season that’s contributed to their success so far.
“We’re really pleased with our start to the season - we’ve been making good progress over the last six months,” added Collins. “It’s been nice to see some of our hard work paying off after years of training and travelling. With regards to our current form, we’re really enjoying how we’re competing right now. We feel we are playing exciting, confident, and disruptive doubles.”
“We trained hard together in the off season and worked on specific areas of our game, which has translated onto the match court and given us confidence.”
While the tour brings many incredible opportunities to professional tennis players, it also comes with its struggles, but travelling with a regular partner certainly has its benefits.
“Yes 100% [it makes a difference]” Christie commented. “As we said, we have great chemistry on and off the court which makes the travel much easier and a lot more fun. Before we started our partnership, we were both struggling with travelling alone, so creating this team has impacted our careers massively.”
“We try to visit the cities on our days off, however with the long days in tennis, that can be tricky,” said Collins. “We both had an agreement with each other to create really good memories whilst we’re on the road, because we won’t always be professional tennis players with the opportunity to travel the world.”
“Apart from that, we’re both quite relaxed, so use our time off to read, watch a good Netflix series, share TikTok’s or listen to The Girls Bathroom Podcast.”
Christie and Collins are the latest British team to break onto the tennis doubles scene, with the likes of Henry Patten and Julian Cash picking up a record-breaking ten ATP Challenger titles last year and Barnett and Nicholls making their mark at the Billie Jean King Cup Finals last November.
“It was great to see so much British doubles success last year, especially watching Liv and Lissey at the Billie Jean King Cup,” Christie said. “Hopefully we can follow a similar path this year.”
After such a successful couple of months, the future is bright for Christie and Collins who are edging closer to the top 100 every week. We asked what goals they’ve set themselves for the upcoming year, as they seek to climb their way to the top of the game.
“We want to break into the Top 100, be regularly competing in WTA events and hopefully compete in a Grand Slam with our own rankings,” explained Collins. “But most importantly, we want to keep improving and enjoying our tennis and continue making memories.”