It was a moment of levity in a frustrating night in Melbourne for American tennis star Danielle Collins, who forgot that tiebreaks in the third set go to ten points as she battled Czech player Karolina Muchova on Wednesday.

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

She then pressed her hands together in a 'thank you' gesture, before picking up her racquet to shake hands with the chair umpire and her opponent.

As she slowly walked over to the chair, she was confused as the audience wasn't applauding and no one was moving. 

Collins approached the chair asking what was going on, when she was informed she had three more points to win.

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

'I was a little embarrassed,' Collins said during the on-court interview. 'I never had to play a tiebreak in the third set of Grand Slam before.'

'I really thought the match was over. I told myself, at least you didn't face plant. I had to keep things in perspective…I am not really good with the score, so maybe I have to work on that a little bit.'

Collins, the 13 seed at the Australian Open and the eleventh ranked women's player in the world, needed three sets to defeat her first opponent - Anna Kalinskaya of Russia.

She won that match 7-5, 5-7, 6-4 to advance to the second round in her bid to return to the Aussie Open Final as she did last year.

There, she fell on Rod Laver in straight sets to now-retired Australian star Ash Barty 6-3, 7-6.

Collins now moves on to take on No. 22 seed Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan on Friday.