Danielle Collins celebrates the win too early in her third set against Karolina Muchova

It was a moment of hilarity on a frustrating night in Melbourne for American tennis star Danielle Collins, who forgot the third-set tie-break is up to ten points as she battled Czech Karolina Muchova on Wednesday.

After winning the seventh point in the third set tiebreak, Collins dropped her racquet, looked up at the sky and held up her hands.

She then pressed her hands together in a gesture of thanks before picking up her racquet to shake hands with the chair umpire and her opponent.

Danielle Collins thought she won her tiebreak against Karolina Muchova on Wednesday

Instead, she stared at the chair umpire in confusion, unaware that she still had three more points to gain

As she slowly walked over to the chair, she was confused as the audience didn’t applaud and nobody moved.

Collins approached the chair and asked what was up when she was told she still had three points to gain.

She laughed at her mistake and returned to her position to serve – winning the tiebreak 10-6 with a final score of 6-7 (1-7) 6-2 7-6 (10-6).

“I felt a little embarrassed,” Collins said during the court interview. “I’ve never had to play a tiebreak in the third set of a Grand Slam.”

“I really thought it was game over. I said to myself, at least you didn’t see any plants. I had to keep things in perspective… I’m not really good with the score so maybe I need to work on it a bit.

Collins laughed at her own mistake and then went on to win the match 6-7 (1-7) 6-2 7-6 (10-6).

Collins, 13th seeded at the Australian Open and 11th-ranked player in the world, needed three sets to defeat her first opponent – Russia’s Anna Kalinskaya.

She won that match 7-5 5-7 6-4 to advance to the second round to return to the Aussie Open final like last year.

There she defeated Rod Laver in straight sets against now-retired Aussie star Ash Barty 6-3, 7-6.

Collins now meets Elena Rybakina from Kazakhstan, number 22, on Friday.

After sending off Muchova, Collins advances to the third round to play 22-seeded Elena Rybakina