Florida, March 29: American tennis star Venus Williams suffered a major blow as she crashed out of Miami Masters after slumping to a shocking straight-sets defeat at the hands of qualifier Danielle Collins in the quarter-finals here on Thursday.

The three-time champion failed to replicate her good performance in the tournament so far and suffered a 2-6, 3-6 against Collins in an all-American last-eight clash that lasted almost one and a half hour on the courts of Key Biscayne.

Following the win, Collins said that she has an incredible respect for Venus, but she is happy to focus on her game and eventually come out victorious.

"I obviously have an incredible amount of respect for Venus, but you kind of have to take the name out of it and just focus on the tennis part and play one point at a time and use your tactics that you come up with your coaches. That's exactly what I did," the WTA quoted Collins, as saying.

With the win, Collins becomes the first qualifier in the history of the Miami Open to make it to the semi-finals of the tournament, which will also be the first Tour-level last-four clash of her career.

Collins will now face sixth seed and reigning Roland Garros champion Jelena Ostapenko in the semi-finals of the match of women's singles event.